The Organization we shall use is SHELL COMPANY.

Imagine that an organisation that owns and manages a brand is experiencing a critical downturn in its business. The organisation needs to expand its brand offerings to be competitive in a global market. You are tasked with developing a new product that would fit within this brand to introduce to a new international market (i.e. outside the organisation's home market).

During the course of developing this assignment, you will be conducting research in the following areas:
- Organisational business strategy and objectives
- Organisational internal and external environments
- Brand marketing strategy and objectives
- Market research approaches
- Marketing communications, with an emphasis on the opportunities afforded by digital communications
- Strategies for building a competitive advantage

The result will be a paper of approximately 6,000 words with the following components.

Part 1: Strategic Marketing Plan

o Section 1: Situational Analysis (1,500 words)
o Section 2: Marketing Plan (3,000 words)
o Section 3: Critical review of a current debate in marketing and brand management (1,500 words)

Section 1: Situational Analysis (1,500 words)

Compile a synopsis of questions below:

1. Describe your process for conducting an informal situational analysis on the organisation you chose. What areas did you consider in your analysis?

Based on your situational analysis, describe the business, marketing and branding strategies.

Describe the alignment of the business, marketing and branding strategies. Be sure to address the following questions:

At what points do they intersect and diverge?

How strategic is this alignment?

What are the dangers of not aligning these strategies?

Strategy for Conducting Market Research

2. Describe a new fictitious product idea that you believe would be a logical fit for Shell Company and its brand promise as well as commercially successful in a new international market of your choice.

Describe the market research approaches you chose that you believe would be most effective in determining the relevant segments and demand for this new product. Your post should explain why you believe they would be most effective in allowing you to better understand three of the following topics in terms of market demand:

Current brand strength (e.g. measures of brand equity)

Market and segment size and growth

Customer segment characteristics

Competitors and alternatives

Buyer behaviour and the buying process (i.e. choice criteria)

Potential for the use of digital marketing processes (e.g. ecommerce, social media) to support the customer buying process.

Be sure to include specific examples and support your postings with evidence of the Readings and other current literature from other sources. Consult the Harvard Referencing Style Guide for proper citation and referencing information.

Add a reflection summarising what you have learned from completing the above highlighting specific attributes that would help in determining an organisation's current strategic marketing situation in preparation for selecting a new product to introduce in an international market.

Use diagrams and tables to illustrate your points and save on word count.

Section 2: Marketing Plan (3,000 words from Units 3, 4 and 5)

Segmentation and Product Proposition

Under this section you will look at the following

Create segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies for your new, fictitious product that falls within the organisation and brand (Shell Company)For this section, include the following:

Produce a graphic representation of your segmentation strategy for your new, fictitious product. Include any niche or subgroups in your graphic depiction that you think might be effective. Also include in your graphic representation a brief summation of the needs of each segment.

In addition to this graphic depiction, write a 1,000-word paper that outlines strategies for creating or increasing brand equity for your branded product. Include:

One strategy for targeting marketing efforts to each segment

One strategy for positioning your product for each segment

For each of the strategies, explain why they would be effective. Include specific examples and appropriate citations/support from the literature for your findings.

Be sure to include specific examples and support your postings with evidence from the Readings and other current literature from credible sources. Consult the Harvard Referencing Style Guide for proper citation and referencing information.

Creating an Effective Marketing Mix

To prepare for this

Focus on specific examples of effective marketing mixes that improved the marketability of a product or brand. Also focus on digital applications related to the marketing mix.

Consider the need for a marketing mix in a marketing strategy. What would be the danger in too little or too much of a focus on one of the P's?

Using online or other sources, explore how the organisation that produces the Shell company brand makes use of its current marketing mix. Pay special attention to how much or how little it focuses on each ‘P'.

To complete this

Evaluate the effectiveness of the current marketing mix for Shell Company. Does the marketing mix meet goals of forming consumer brand relationships? Include in your evaluation whether the marketing mix includes the right mix of P's.

In a 1,000-word paper, create a marketing mix you believe would be more effective for this new product in order to build brand equity in an international market and explain why you chose this mix. Include a variety of marketing methods, including digital marketing. How is the marketing mix for this new product different from the marketing mix that was most likely used for the organisation's other products? Why?

Be sure to include specific examples and support your postings with evidence from the Readings, other current literature from other credible sources. Consult the Harvard Referencing Style Guide for proper citation and referencing information.

Increasing Competitive Advantage

To prepare for this

Read Day (2003). Consider what this author views as the components of customer-relating capability. How can these components be leveraged to build a competitive advantage?

Read the module text chapters. In Chapter 11, consider how organisations can develop objectives and strategies to manage a product or brand through inception, growth, decline and new growth through new products or brands. In Chapter 19, review Porter's 5 Forces model.

Read Hamel and Pralahad (1985), focusing on the strategies for building a global presence, defending domestic position and overcoming national fragmentation.

Review some of the Sector Overviews in the Interbrand Web site. Consider how some of the world's top brands strategise to maintain competitive advantage.

To complete this:

In a 1,000-word paper, create a plan for increasing competitive advantage for the selected organisation and brand. The plan should include three appropriate strategies for increasing competitive advantage in your chosen organisation. For each strategy, include the following:

Explain how the strategies support overall corporate business and marketing strategies to increase competitive market advantage.

Identify essential resources required to execute these strategies for increasing competitive advantage.

Explain how you might measure performance related to meeting strategy objectives for increasing competitive advantage.

Be sure to include specific examples and support your postings with evidence from the Reading, other current literature from other credible sources. Consult the Harvard Referencing Style Guide for proper citation and referencing information.

Section 3: Critical review of a current debate in marketing and brand management (1,500 words)

Select a current debate in marketing and brand management.

Search the Internet and other sources and identify a relevant article about the current debate you selected.

To complete the critical review, compose an essay of approximately 1,500 words that includes the following:

An introduction paragraph identifying the current debate you selected and why it interests you.

A paragraph critically reviewing the article you identified.

An explanation of what side, if any, you take in the debate, incorporating learning from the module. If you did not take a side, explain why.

All citations should be supported with appropriate literature sources. These should appear in Harvard format in a References section at the end of your paper.