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Part 1 – Integrated Marketing Communications, and the Changing Media Landscape

 Integrated Marketing Communication

Considering that Samsung’s active target group is of the age between 20 and 50 years, the only way to develop would be by targeting individuals over the age of 55. Since people within this age are not actively involved with some of the current and intricate technologies, integrated marketing communication with them is crucial. In this case, six tools will be used in the marketing campaign as promotional methods. These include advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations and direct marketing efforts.  The communication message is vertical in nature and fits with the overall and marketing objectives of the company. Since the target market is the more elderly population, the marketing message will be “THE FUTURE IN YOUR HANDS!” which will suggest a movement to the future with current technology. To succeed in marketing, communication strategies like Guerilla and ambush marketing and sponsored consumers will be used to communicate to the target population effectively since they have already been proven to work in the past (Yeshin, 2012).

Marketing Communication Objectives

The main marketing communication objectives of the company include the maintenance of customer loyalty among the elderly population of the country as well. The other objective is increasing the company’s market shares in the country hence improving the revenues of the country. Also, the company also aims at improving its brand presence within the elderly population, which has been largely neglected since most of the products are focused on satisfying the needs and desires of the younger and active population. These objectives will be accomplished by capitalizing on making the individuals aware of the existence of a new line of product that suits their need. This will increase their interests in the product and increase the desire for the product, hence increasing customer loyalty and ensuring that people start to value the product. Finally, the action will follow where people will try out the product leading to a direct increase in the company’s market share.

Promotion Mix 

Different tools will be used to accomplish the three marketing objectives. The tools to be used are namely, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, personal selling, and public relations. Advertisement will be the main tool used to accomplish these objectives and increase the brand’s awareness and increase its market share (Belch & Belch, 2015). Public relations, sales promotion, and direct marketing, will also be crucial. As for increasing customer loyalty and retention, direct selling, sales promotion and personal selling, the promotional tools will be crucial. Finally, increasing the company’s brand presence is the final objectives, and it will be accomplished by traditional advertising techniques (newspaper, television, etc.), guerrilla and ambush marketing techniques and sponsored consumers. The sponsored consumers are individuals that have already used the products, and express their experience with the product hence attracting other people to purchase the product.

Media Strategy

Traditional advertising will be the most effective media strategy used. This is considering that within the elderly in the community, people remain conservative and prefer using media that they familiar with. Hence, strategies such as promotional consumers will be communicated through magazines and newspapers like Senior Times Magazine, New York Times and Reader’s Digest. Sales promotion is also a major channel to be used to promote products within the target market. However, this will only work effectively if integrated with other non-traditional tools like product placement (Belch & Belch, 2015). This will be carried out by using popular TV series including those aired through Netflix could be used to promote products by airing characters use these products, especially the seniors.  This will attract people to purchase the products and ensure that the company accomplishes its main objectives.

Part 2 – Special Topics in Marketing

B2B Marketing        

Business-to-business marketing (B2B) refers to commercial transactions between businesses especially when the business decides to outsource products from other sources. As a company, the best markets where the company could expand to include health, finance, and sports, which are some of the growing markets in the world at the moment (Hadjikhani & LaPlaca, 2013). For instance, recent reports have suggested that there is a growing need to improve health and live by the health standards, hence ensuring its sustenance. As a result, investing in such a growing field would ensure that the company’s revenue continues growing. The fact that mobile devices have been increasingly used to monitor health conditions for individuals makes it ideal for them since their research and development team is already advanced and could be used for the purpose. Also, the company could also get into the finance markets and enter into businesses with different financial companies and assist individuals to make the necessary financial decisions that they need.

Segmenting B2B Markets

Research suggests that habit-based behavioral segmentation is the one that segments the market by studying customer behavior and understanding their desires and actions. Determining how to segment the market starts with the analysis of different segments based on purchases (Simkin, 2008). The buyers, in this case, are segmented by behavior, geography, demographics and psychographics. By behavior, it is evident that Samsung would most likely benefit from getting into business with companies within the health market. This is because the elderly in the community are mostly seeking to maximize their health benefits, the extent to which they require health attentions and their daily need to monitor health situations. The individual’s situation, in most cases, put them at risk of different health dangers they are exposed to. As a result, a mobile device that helps people to monitor their health conditions and even get health assistance or guidelines as to how to deal with different issues. Hence, their behavior proves that they are more in need of enhanced devices with features they need to carry out their day-to-day activities.

Marketing Information Systems    

A marketing information system is crucial to the making marketing decisions by helping manage information systems within organizations. Different types of data could be used in the decision-making process. The information could be either internal or external to the company. Internal data includes the sales data, competitive information, as well as the stock level data. Sales data is necessary since it gives information on the trends of sales and the whether the target market selected would be prospective. As for the competitive information, the company could analyze its competitor’s communication and strategy and judge from its success they can decide the most appropriate strategy to embark on. The next type of information necessary to create the most appropriate marketing strategy is the stock level data. It indicates whether the company needs to focus on making its outlets more effective and even provide market share information necessary in any subsequent expansion strategies.

Marketing Metrics

After implementing a particular marketing mix, companies need to keep track of developments to ensure that these strategies are effective. Hence, the marketing metrics are usually used to assess/evaluate whether the steps taken are successful or necessary for that matter. Both performance and financial metrics could be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy. The main financial metric that could be used to assess its effectiveness is the Customer Acquisition Cost, which is the total sales and marketing cost divided by the number of new customers (Srivastava, Reibstein, & Woodside, 2005). The performance metrics, on the other hand, include the marketing originated customers, marketing influences customers, sales growth and customer retention rate.

Effects of the High Costs of College

As a result of the high cost of college education, the education of future generations will be affected negatively. As Oachs (54) explains, the children of the current and recent graduates will be affected negatively because many graduates now take loans on a 20 to 30-year repayment plan (Oachs 54). What this means is that these graduates will have problems financing the education of their children because instead of investing money in their children’s education, they will still be paying their own student debts (Oachs 55). If the current high cost persists, the future generations will be required to pay even higher and their parents will not be able to afford that.

Secondly, many college graduates have to result to living with their parents (Oachs 56). The debts and the high costs of repayment have made independent living almost impossible for many of the recent graduates. Coupled with the high unemployment rate, many struggle to live independently initially and at last make the decision to go back home because the financial situation leaves them without no other viable option (Oachs 55). Living with parents not only robs one of the independence of living alone but also affects the ability of the parents to educate the other children in the family.

Due to the high costs of college, poorer students have to distort their career choices as they have to choose careers that they would otherwise have chosen had they had more money. Moreover, even after choosing these courses, they have to spent a lot of time working rather than studying and it’s is no surprise that many are struggling to graduate. Other poorer students also have to go to colleges that they don’t want to be in (Zhang 3).

Works Cited

Oachs, Rose Emily. The Rising Cost of Education. New York, NY: ABDO, 2016. Print.

Zhang, Liang. Does Quality Pay?: Benefits of Attending a High-Cost, Prestigious College. New York, NY: Routledge, 2012. Print.

Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2015). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Hadjikhani, A., & LaPlaca, P. (2013). Development of B2B marketing theory. Industrial Marketing Management, 42(3), 294-305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2013.03.011

Simkin, L. (2008). Achieving market segmentation from B2B sectorisation. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 23(7), 464-474. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/08858620810901220

Srivastava, R., Reibstein, D. J., & Woodside, W. S. (2005). Metrics for linking marketing to financial performance. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.

Yeshin, T. (2012). Integrated marketing communications. Routledge: Woburn, MA.