The Marketing Mix Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The Marketing Mix - Essay Example But in other instances, the marketing mix included product planning, pricing, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, and fact finding and analysis Brassington and Petit (2000) emphasised that marketing includes â€Å"†¦absolutely essential business activities that bring you the products you do want, when you want them, where you want them, but at prices you can afford†¦Ã¢â‚¬  These statements, including â€Å"The marketer has to ensure that the marketing mix meets the customer’s needs and wants,† from Brassington and Petit only means that the customer’s needs and wants shape the way marketing executives and companies in the conceptualisation, presentation and delivery of products and services. One example of this is Nokia. Nokia from Finland have consistently provided cutting edge technology in the mobile phone industry catering mostly to young, mobile urban market aged 18 to 39. Their leading the industry was due to their compact designs and variety of optional services provided for by their phones which at launching, were definitely not available among its competitors. Previously dominated by Motorola, Nokia combined a marketing mix of reasonable price, new product that delivers, as well as accessibility that the young market were looking for which was then not available. In a 2003 marketing campaign, Nokia tied up with DVC Worldwide in the launching of camera phone 3650. Appealing generally to tech and media-savvy teens, Nokia went beyond standard marketing and advertising channels by inserting its brand into the consciousness of dominant young teenager females that actually influence the buying behaviour of other teens (Mucha, 2003). The strategy identified "social leaders" of teen groups that in turn informed DVCX how and where to promote the product hitting restaurants, malls, and even high school parties in order to introduce and demonstrate the camera phones across seven U.S. key areas Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. DVCX president John Palumbo was quoted saying, "We try to find the right places, the right times, the right fit You merge the brand into their lives." The report had also indicated other strategies used for Nokia 3650 of giving "alpha teens" free phones and three months of free service, $50 rebates to people who voluntarily e-mailed camera photos to their friends, so that the campaign reportedly reached 200,000 potential customers, teens walking away with more than 100,000 rebates, 25,000 camera phone pictures snapped at potential customers, 20,000 new e-mail addresses, and a 2,000 contact base of social influencers. Mucha (2003) added that the Nokia teenage girl campaign is a sample of a larger trend called experiential marketing defined by Palumbo as, "marketing programs that involve the target audience with the brand to create an experience. If people remember it, are interested in it, and talk about it, the brand becomes an experience, both physical and emotional," (qtd., Mucha, 2003). Other companies or brands that have launched the same marketing strategy include AT&T, Campbell Soup, Claritin, Apple, Jet Blue, Mini Cooper and Nike which brands were "all designed to involve people" (Palumbo qtd. in Mucha, 2003) and hoped to