Marketing Mix Strategies Essay

Introduction

Companies deploy a set of controllable tactical marketing tools to influence product demand from target markets. Marketing mix strategies include product, price, place, and promotion. The marketing mix is closely related to product segmentation, targeting, and positioning as such elements are crucial in identifying the most valuable market. Therefore, different companies have adopted different marketing mix strategies most of which specifically focus on consumer needs to offset competition from other companies with similar services and product. This analysis will address marketing mix strategies in two selected companies; the Coca-cola Company and Samsung, which are high-tech with different products and intended product positioning strategies.

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Both Coca-Cola and Samsung companies have adopted high technology marketing mix strategies to gain effective and efficient market share in their different markets that have been greatly influenced by technological advancements (Kolah, 2013). The strong brand identities of these companies have enabled an effective marketing mix that has facilitated strong competitive and innovative products that connect with actual customer needs in developing new markets.

Coca Cola's Marketing Mix: Place

The Coca-Cola Company is a global leader in soft drinks and still beverages. It operates in more than 200 countries with its most profitable operations in the United States. The company's marketing strategy in segmentation, targeting, and positioning does not target a specific market segment but majorly relies on new product development (The Coca-Cola Company, 2016). The company uses undifferentiated and niche strategies of market targeting in the competitive food and beverage industry. For instance, its niche segmentation and targeting of its cola product are recognized worldwide while other products such as diet coke targets niche markets for individuals with health consciousness. Additionally, Coca Cola's positioning strategy is a competitive approach to compete with the wide non-alcoholic beverage market. The company distributes its products through the FMCG pattern, where they have captured even the rural markets in the nations it operates, for example, in India; it has an extensive distribution pattern that has overwhelmed the local market share.

Promotion Strategy in Coca-Cola

Coca Cola's promotional and advertising strategies have enabled an increase in product market demand through value-based advertising, which mainly targets behavior and lifestyle. For instance, Coke uses specialized strategies where its products target certain festive seasons. Furthermore, its corporate social responsibility has been an instrumental marketing tool in gaining consumer loyalty (De Mooij, 2013). Therefore, Coke's existing CSR promotion such as 'taste the feeling' and 'support my school' allows price discounts and allowances to retailers and distributors to increase market product distribution. The promotion employs a push strategy while its pull strategy utilizes public campaigns and advertising.

The Coca-Cola Marketing Mix: Price

The price element of the marketing mix strategy is another concept that utilizes value and utility to customers. Price elasticity is core in increasing profits, generating sales, maintaining brand image, gaining market share as well as ensuring survival. The main aspects of price promotion are personal selling, advertising, direct marketing, public relations, as well as sales promotion (Tanwar, 2013). Coca-Cola has wide-ranging products, hence pricing in its marketing mix is conducted based on geographic and market segment. Differentiated pricing is based on competitor prices, where Pepsi is the main competitor although there are other smaller beverage companies challenge Coke.

Coca-Cola Products

Another element in Coke's marketing mix is the product, where Coca-Cola focus on diversified product portfolio strategy. It specializes in many different beverage and food products where beverages are subdivided into water, tea and coffee, fruit juices, energy drinks, and other drinks available in almost 200 nations (De Mooij, 2013). Hence, product diversification has been achieved in both the food and beverage sector as well as a few products outside the industry. In the recent past, there has been a slow growth in the carbonated soft drink market (The Coca-Cola Company, 2016). This has resulted from shifting consumer preference that has prompted a move towards healthier products. For instance, the launch of Coke's flavored milk brand in India made it the most popular drink. The company's soft drinks have recorded substantial growth due to such a product diversification strategy.

Samsung's Marketing Mix: Product

Samsung mobile company is one of the world's leading high-tech Company in the world, with a high market share due to its capacity to offer numerous models of mobile phones. Samsung has no specific geographical base and demographics in its segmentation since its products and services are accessible in different locations (Kolah, 2013). The variety of products offered such as the smartphone technology is driven by the company's brand image. Therefore, the product portfolio in the Samsung marketing mix benefits the company due to the high product quality attributes. The smartphone market is dominant with Samsung Galaxy Series leading Samsung products in the market.

Samsung Pricing Strategy

Other than its smartphones, Samsung uses a competitive pricing strategy for such products as refrigerators, televisions, and conditioners face competition from other companies such as LG and Panasonic. Noteworthy, although Samsung is a great brand, LG has a higher competitive advantage and provides competition in home appliances. However, for Samsung smartphones, skimming pricing is applied in marketing mix where the company is a price leader with a high competitive advantage over its competitors, particularly LG and Apple (Knopfle, 2016). Skimming price enables the company to get a high value from newly launched products before competition from its competitors become stiff. Thus, a price skimming is reinforced through additional features in its products.

Place in the Marketing mix of Samsung

The marketing segment uses channel marketing where the main market segments include modern retail, sales and service dealers, and distributors. The sales and service segment deals with Samsung's key accounts and corporate sales (Knopfle, 2016). Samsung's Modern retail handles large retailers such as Vijay sales, Croma, and other players in the modern electronic retail chain. The company utilizes the high dominance of its smartphones and tablets to establish itself in different locations. Consequently, different mobile phone network companies in different geographical parts of the world stock Samsung's innovative products (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). Furthermore, the company has ventured into doing business with medical facilities such as the supply of equipment for clinics and medical centers. Single product distributors facilitate distribution of Samsung products, where all materials are then sold to retailers, unlike Coca-Cola that uses local distribution channels.

Samsung Promotions in Marketing Mix

There are various promotional elements used by Samsung through a variety of its marketing vehicles. For instance, its promotion involves discounts and offers that motivates its clients and trade partners. Similar to Coca-Cola, Samsung's promotion uses both pull and push strategies. The pull strategy involves expensive but quality products that drive the company's brand recognition. The pull strategy uses numerous advertising while it also employs a push strategy through sales promotion to get the product to the customers (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). Additionally, unlike Coca-Cola, Samsung uses celebrity endorsement as a promotional tool to engage its consumers. For instance, the company is known to endorse sports personalities who connect its products with clients.

Conclusively, both Coca-Cola and Samsung practice both similar and different approaches in their marketing mix. While these companies have extensive geographical, demographics, and psychographic coverage, their pricing and promotional strategies vary. Coca-Cola mainly targets all populations in the economy and designs its products to fit different customer needs. Contrary, Samsung has established a highly competitive value market for its products that attract high pricing strategies such as skimming price. The companies employ different distribution strategies (place) as Samsung is a high-tech beneficiary that Coke.

Recommendations

Despite the similarities and differences noted between the two companies, a few recommendations can be made. First, both need to take a longer view on global demographic trends and technological changes to forecast potential market changes. In both Samsung and Coca-Cola, there is a high-untapped population of aged individuals, over 65 years and those in the early 70s, who can be a viable target for fitness promotional products due to their delicate lifestyles and social changes. Another recommendation is increasing the promotional tools used. For instance, both companies use a communication media that can face barriers in local areas. Particularly, Samsung should focus on more use of television commercials that target rural consumer. This can be in form of increased corporate social responsibility in less urbanized localities. Similarly, Coke can also benefit from local initiatives by emulating its earlier practices such as its local market penetration in India.

References

De Mooij, M. (2013). Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage Publications.

Knopfle, G. (2016). Samsung Electronics and the Global Market. The History and the Competitive Advantage.

Kolah, A. (2013). High impact marketing that gets results. Kogan Page Publishers.

Shank, M. D., & Lyberger, M. R. (2014). Sports marketing: A strategic perspective. Routledge.

Tanwar, R. (2013). Porter's generic competitive strategies. Journal of business and management, 15(1), 11-17.

The Coca-Cola Company. (2016). Five strategic actions. Retrieved from https://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/five-strategic-actions