Marketing Principles Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task 1: Class participation and successful completion of weekly activities

To assist in your understanding of marketing issues, you are encouraged to contribute to in-class activities and discussions. Your participation and interaction with other students will be a major component of the class instruction.

From weeks 3 through to 12, each week, all students will give a brief class presentation (1-2 mins with a one page summary handout to the lecturer) on a current marketing topic. These topics can be sourced from a wide variety of subjects including reviewing a current advertisement, or discussing an article from a newspaper or magazine.

Assessment Task 2:  Individual Report in two parts

Task Details:

Over recent years there has been growing consumer demand for 'green' products. That is, products that claim to be better for the environment by containing less chemicals, reducing pollution etc. Consumers are spending more and more money on such 'green' products - it is your task to conduct a literature review exploring the growth in this industry to determine the reasons underlying the popularity. Sourcing relevant research and by applying theories of consumer behaviour you are to analyse the industry growth to determine:

• what are the popular products within the industry - industry trends
• who are consuming these products
• why are they consuming these products
• practical recommendations for green companies to follow to increase customers

Part A Requirements:

Your report plan will comprise a 'plan' of what you intend to include in the complete final report (ie: Part B). It should include a clear statement of the purpose of the report, the correct report structure, with subheadings showing each section of the intended report, and a brief outline of the content of each section. Additionally, some preliminary research should be conducted to 'set-up' and prepare for your full report (ie: Part B).

Part B Requirements:

Develop a detailed report that examines consumer decision making in relation to these kinds of 'green' products. You must explore this industry using the framework for analysis of: consumer decision making, and individual differences in consumer buyer behaviour. Having conducted your literature review, you will analyse the research to discover insights into consumer behaviour in terms of individual background culture, social groups, and personal differences such as age, occupation, lifestyle, and motivation. That is, you may find that there are different motivational drives underlying the usage of different 'green' products. Finally, you must provide a number of practical marketing recommendations for 'green' product companies based on your findings.

You are required research the topic and write a critical discussion and review of the relevant literature from secondary data sources. This means that you will need to read other researcher's articles and reports to find out what is known about the topic. You need to identify relevant texts, journal articles, media articles, etc., summarise what each say about the topic and write an integrated discussion. You must use a combination of texts, journal articles etc., and at least half of the items must be academic journal articles. You may also use the popular media, (eg the internet, newspapers etc) but remember those sources are opinionated and often unreliable.

This paper should:

• identify journal articles, texts, media articles, etc. that are relevant to the research scenario and integrate source information into a coherent discussion. The reference list should comprise a minimum of 15 references from various sources including books, marketing/business magazines and journals, internet sites etc. Emphasis must be given to academic peer reviewed journal articles
• provide evidence of appropriate reading and research
• demonstrate quality and completeness of the critical discussion of the literature
• include references (appropriately acknowledged using the referencing approaches as outlined in the Faculty's Student Guide) to support your arguments and perspectives
• demonstrate a professional approach to presentation including title page, executive summary, table of contents
• demonstrate a professional standard of expression and use of language

Recommended report structure/content:

Title page

Executive summary

Table of contents

Introduction

The introduction should present a brief background to the 'Green Industry' and consumer behaviour, and the rationale for such an investigation. In addition, aims and structure of the report should be presented.

Detailed overview of the 'Green industry' and the popular products/trends within it

The focus here will be on presenting 'hard' information such as statistics and data from journal articles about the 'green industry' as a whole (e.g.: from its beginning to present day), and the latest trends within the industry, such as products/product classes that are popular.

Target market profile analyses

You must provide a detailed profiling of the target audience for such green products. Details such as the gender, age, income, lifestyle, culture, values and beliefs are needed of the typical green customer. Also, a researched account of the major reasons why these people are attracted to green products.

Recommendations

Based on the above research and analyses, you must provide a number of practical recommendations that companies operating in or considering operating in the green industry can apply. Such recommendations may apply to the advertising and promotions side of the business, or to the product development/innovation side etc.

Reference list (should comprise a minimum of 10 references from various sources including books, marketing/business magazines and journals, internet sites etc.)

Assessment Task 3:  Group (pairs) Presentation on Advertisement Evaluation

Group (pairs) presentation of an evaluation for an advertisement/promotion of a 'new' product chosen by you. You must analyse the advertisement for the new product (ie: released within the past 12 months) in terms of core customer benefit(s)/value proposition, target audience, communication objectives, and creative strategy.