Global marketing strategy and product launch Essay

Global marketing strategy and product launch - Essay Example Besides providing an opportunity to the people to go beyond the ordinary, Dinner in the Sky’s mission is to provide a perfect environment to the customers with friendly services and utmost satisfaction (Mills et al, 2003). The restaurant marks its presence in more than 15 countries (Dinnerinthesky.com, 2012). The focus and the gist of this report would be to present the opportunity which the market of Pakistan presents Dinner in the Sky and to present a marketing plan and an audit of the market in order to successfully launch Dinner in the Sky in Pakistan. ... The idea of taking the diners literally in the sky and serving scrumptious food is being widely accepted throughout where the restaurant operates. The restaurant’s main aim is to provide a service and an experience which no one else in the market is providing. The big idea is to cater the client’s lavish needs of conducting their events such as important meetings, marriages etc in the sky but the primary purpose of the entity is to provide an ultimate dining experience to the customers. The restaurant’s vision is to mark its presence globally and promote the idea throughout the world (Dinnerinthesky.com, 2012). In line with the restaurant’s aim to promote the idea globally, Dinner in the Sky will launch its services in Karachi, which is the business hub of Pakistan. The market presents a good opportunity to the restaurant with a growing middle class. As the economic trend show a rise of investment and economic activity in the Asian countries, Dinner in the Sky must grab this business opportunity. Not only the economic side seems favorable but the marketing aspect of the market in accordance with Dinner in the Sky’s aims and objectives compliment the launching of the venture (Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Directory of Pakistan, 2009; State Bank of Pakistan, 2011). 2 Environmental Analysis: 2.1 Political and Economic Analysis: Karachi, as mentioned above is the business hub of Pakistan. Apart from that, Karachi also is a home of people coming from many cultures and background. This becomes reason for some political disturbance in the city however, the higher end areas of the city, i.e. Clifton, Muhammad Ali Jinnah Society, Tariq Road, Defense Housing Authority remain calm (Hashmi, 1965). Apart from this, the economy of Pakistan is growing at a steady rate. Its

Integrated Marketing Communication Program for Jeans

Integrated Marketing Communication Program for Jeans Executive summary: Various jeans industry such as Denim, Levis, and Disney etc. design various integrated marketing program. Although common objective of all IMC program is increase brand awareness, sale and design a unique image in customers mind. In order to address and attract customer all jeans industry launch various campaign. To communicate with public and customers they advertise their campaign on TV, magazine, online and radio. Through their advertisement they want to design their brand image in customer mind. Besides advertisement, they also carried out promotion activity, public relation, direct marketing etc. Direct marketing is although time consuming but most effective tool for communication. Various jeans industry also organizes various events in order to communicate properly with customers, for example Aadharshila Brand solution was planning to launch an event called â€Å"JEAN JANOON† for their client â€Å"The HUB† a multi brand outlet for apparel. Main purpose of this event is to increase the sale of jeans. Before designing IMC program this company carried out market research in order to judge customers behaviors toward jeans. For research they design the strategy for â€Å"JEAN JANOON† event. During the event they decided to get feedback from customer who visits â€Å"The HUB† multiband retail outlet so that appropriate primary data can be collected for designing IMC strategy for â€Å"The HUB†. Before designing integrated marketing communication program it is necessary to judge consumers behavior toward jeans , it is necessary to known customers liking and disliking, these data provide various support during designing of IMC program. Although there are various media available for communicating but Printads in magazine and news paper is seen most effective medium followed by television. After Research survey done by various jeans company, it has been found that male respondents were less brand conscious than female. There is no particular fashion trend among males, but females are more conscious towards seasonal fashion trends. â€Å"Fitting† and â€Å"style† are the major attributes considered by customer while buying jeans. Marketing plan plan Situation Analysis: Every organization faces a lot of problem at present time so it became necessary for every organization that before setting any objective carried out situation analysis in order to recognize strength, weakness, opportunities and threat present in our organization. According to Sally and John, marketing plans are â€Å"the written document or blueprint for implementing and controlling an organizations marketing activities related to a particular marketing strategy† . A successful marketing plan is able to improve organizations profits and growth, uses in objective setting and monitors results. So to gain a successful market plan it is necessary to to understand the current situation comprehensively and trends affecting the future of the organization.There are two major reasons to explain why situation analysis plays a vital role in developing marketing plan. Firstly, dynamic marketing environment will lead to uncertainty, threats and opportunities for marketers. Marketing managers who success to know changes in environment through situation analysis can lead their companies to capitalize on opportunities and cope with threats created by changes. Then, systematically analyzing situational environments in order to identify our customers and understand their needs. There are certain opportunities in jeans industry, such as increase women wear collection, increase market and market share through integrated PR, and advertisement and promotional campaign. Besides opportunities there is a lot of threat that create barrier for entry in to jeans industry. These threats are as follow: Increasing competition in ethical fashion Ethical brand is not taken seriously by public High price and loyalty decrease loyalty toward brand Main objective behind situation analysis is to known analyze customer, competitor and there strategy. Marketing objective: After situation analysis we became able to known our organization strength, weakness, opportunities and threat present in environment. It provides a lot of support in setting of objective. There may be a lot of marketing objective, some are as follow: Increase market share To create new successful denim and clothing rang and expand it to convert not user in to user. Increase sale by 50% in 6 month from the launch of public campaign Create awareness among target audience. Use excessive advertising especially using media preferred by the target market. Create product belonging and position among buyers mind Marketing strategies: Toachieve these objective we implement various strategy. Target market: Urban personality: Affluent young professional Prosperous young professional Students and cosmopolitan Marketing Mix Strategies : Main aim of various jeans industry to produce high quality jeans in various qualities such as five packet jeans in various size. This is mostly done to capture youth attention. They produce jeans in various colour to capture more market share. Must of jeans brand such as levis, denim, dem lea diesel jeans jump in to Indian market by producing high quality of jeans Pricing range from 4.7 $ to 9.5$. Jeans do not need too much promotion. It is done mostly by fair, E – commerce and agent The distribution channels for jeans industry are as follows. MANUFACTURER (COMPANY) WHOLESELLER JEANS SEND TO RETAILER CUSTOMER Internal Process It is as follows. Sample Cutting Stitching Washing Pressing and labeling Finishing Dispatched to store Packing and containers Explanation The sample is first send by the buyer. Its called a gold seal sample. In cutting dept, one piece is placed on the other and in this way a bundle of 50 Jeans is made. Then the cutter cuts it. In the stitching dept, front end or the upper part is made. Then backend is made and they are assembled together in the assembly end. Then the belt is made. Washing can be done by simple garment wash or through the stone wash and chemicals. It is done according to the buyers request. In Pressing and labeling dept, the Jeans are pressed and then labeled for identification. In finishing dept, the quality of jeans is checked and mistakes are rectified. Then the Jeans dispatched to the store. Then packing is done. It is done according to the buyers request. Then they are sent to the containers. Samples of Product; Implementation tactics : Launch a blind ad campaign on billboards and magazines in all A class areas of major cities and magazine. Heavy advertising on TV, newspapers and magazines Set displays of jeans in showrooms and major dealer outlets in all cities. Reduce number of billboards, television and magazines advertisements. Continue Advertising Evaluation, Monitoring and Control: Goal of marketing plan is to achieve market objective that are established before implementation of marketing plan. We evaluate and control our strategic tactic by comparing our result with standard established before setting of plan, by measuring customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. If result is less than our standard than there any is default in implementation and monitoring. The people who are responsible for the monitoring and control of the marketing plan involves, the Marketing Executives, Sales Managers, Media Managers, Market Research Departments, and the Production Managers. Some activities must be carried out for precisely and closely evaluating the effectiveness of the strategies and tactics for example the gathering and structuring of data regarding market, product, consumers and the pricing trends, then the generation of daily sales report should be maintained and then in the end continuous reconfirming of the marketing budget and activities by the managers of different divisions. The Integrated Marketing Communication Plan Integrated Marketing Communications is a term used to describe a holistic approach to marketing communication. It aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. The concept includes online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and television. A company develops its integrated marketing communication programme using all the elements of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) So Integrated marketing communication is integration of all marketing tools, approaches, and resources within a company which maximizes impact on consumer mind and which results into maximum profit at minimum cost. Promotional activities include Advertising, sales promotion, and personal selling activities. It also includes internet marketing, sponsorship marketing, direct marketing, database marketing and public relations. And integration of all these promotional tools along with other components of marketing mix to gain edge over competitor is called Integrated Marketing Communication. Situational analysis: First of all we carried out we carried out situation analysis in order to unedrtood problem. In this we identify our compititors and their strategy for example Levi carried out compititor analysis and find out various strategy adopted by Tommy Hilfiger, JNCO, VF Corporation, Gap, Calvin Klein, Diesel and Paris Blues. After situation analysis Levy Strauss Company find out thattheCalifornia gold rush outfitter whose trademark blue jeans have been an American clothing staple for generations, had fallen on hard times by 2004 and needed a change in strategic direction.After seven consecutive years of falling sales, profits turned to losses in 2003. Management responded to the decline by moving its manufacturing plants offshore and by introducing a new line of discount jeans at Wal-Mart.It also considered selling off its Dockers casual pants unit in order to focus on its jeans business. Under situation analysis we also analyze financial position of company. IMC objective: There are various IMC objective set by jeans company after situation analysis in order to accomplish their goal. Some of objective are as follow: To Increase sale by 50% in six month To Increase brand awareness To Increase customer loyality To Increase desire of customer To Increase repeat purchase To measure customer satisfaction To create relationship with customer on personal level To control and observe public opinion To receive feedback from customer on regular basis Media objectivesstate the impact that you expect to have on an audience in terms of reach and frequency. Objectives must meet the following criteria: Measurability Quantifiability Realism time-specificity Budget determination: We need to establish what amount of money will be needed to achieve the IMC objectives.Although there is various methods present to determine what amount of money invest on IMC. These methods are as follow: Affordable Method Percentage of Sales Method Unit of Sales Method Zero Budgeting Method Inaffordable methodwe invest money on IMC as soon as we can afford. However inPercentage of Sales Methodamount of money invest on IMC tool depend on what amount of sale we expect to achieve during course of year. These percentages are mostly adhoc and sometime based on judgment. InUnit of Sales MethodCompany allocate a certain proportion of cost of product to promotion. Thus say if ex factory cost of the product is say Rs 100/ the company will allot Rs.10/- toward promotion cost. Hence if company expects sale 10,000 unit of the product, thus allocated IMC budget will be Rs.100.000/-. In Zero Budgeting Method, company determine what need to achieve in term of sale and then rework backward in term of what money will be needed to be allocate to deliver those customers. Thus if company believe that in order to achieve their sales, 10,000 customers need to purchase their jeans once during the planning period than it will work out what number of prospective customers will needed to be tar geted through ATL and BTL activity, in order to achieve that result. IMC Methodologies There are various component of integrated marketing communication that is as follow: Advertisement Advertisement is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas or products by an identified sponsor. Objective of any ads is to increase brand awareness. Objectives: There are mostly three objective of advertisement compaign, that are as follow: Inform Persuade Remind Inform: Informative advertising, seeks to tell the market about the jeans, explain the new quality added in jeans, provide information on pricing, and build awareness of both the jeans quality and the company. Such objectives are normally pursued at the launch of a new quality jeans, or re-launch / up-date of an existing jean. Persuade: Here objectives are to encourage the target audience to switch brands, make the purchase, and create a preference in the market for the jeans as opposed to its competition. Advertising of this nature is required in highly competitive markets, where a range of jeans design competes directly with each other. In such circumstances businesses often seek to differentiate their jeans through Comparison Advertising – either directly or indirectly comparing its jeans to that of its competitors. Remind: Reminder Advertising, is used to maintain interest and awareness of a well established jeans brand in the market, often in the latter stages of its product life cycle. It is often used at the Point-of-Purchase to remind consumers of the Brand. Advertisement budget: Having identified advertising objectives, the advertising budget must be set. Determining exactly how much a business should spend on advertising to achieve the desired level of sales. Commonly, the decision is based on past experience of expenditure on advertising, and the sales subsequently achieved. There are however a number of factors that can be considered in setting the advertising budget Factors influencing the setting of advertising Budgets: Product life cycle stage:New products in the Launch stage of their Product Life Cycle, will normally require greater expenditure on advertising to create product awareness, and encourage consumers to trial the product. Whilst products that have reached Maturity in their product life cycle, will often require smaller advertising budgets to achieve the level of sales required. Competition:The number of competitors in the market, and their expenditure on advertising competing products, will influence a business to spend to a similar or higher degree. Product Differentiation:A product very similar to other products on the market may require greater expenditure on advertising to differentiate it from its competitors. Advertising Strategy: Developing an Advertising Strategy to achieve the objectives of a campaign, requires that consideration be given to both the ‘Message which will be communicated and the ‘Media through which it will be sent Advertising Message An advertising campaign, no matter how much money is spent, no matter what media is used, will only be successful if the Message appeals to the target audience. Given the level of advertising which bombards the average consumer, a successful advertising message must stand out amongst the advertising clutter. Thus marketing professionals are required to be creative, imaginative and innovative in developing the advertising message, both in terms of what is said, and How it is said? What is said This is often referred to as the ‘Big Idea, and will normally address the key benefits sought by the target audience, motivating the audience to pay attention. Given the constant search for new ways to appeal to target audiences, it is difficult to categories the content of advertising messages which a business may send, below we include a couple of examples of actual message strategy. During delivery of advertisement massage in customer mind take the personality symbol, lifestyle and musical as consideration. In addition the tone of the advertisement will need to be established, which can be either positive or negative. The advert may therefore promote positive feelings of fun, contentment, and happiness or take on a more negative, somber, or even threatening tone. Selecting Advertising Media: In addition to deciding upon the content, style and tone of the advertising message, the media through which the message will be communicated to the target audience must also be selected. Mostly for jeans advertisement we select media such as magazine, newspaper and outdoor. TV rarely used for advertisement of jeans. In order to select the most appropriate media, consideration must should be given to various advantage and disadvantage of various media. Strengths and weakness of various media are as given below: Television : Strengths Dynamic attention getting media, combining visual, sound and animated stimulus. Strong potential Impact High market coverage Good at demonstrating products Weaknesses: Highly expensive Poor at communicating lengthy technical information Newspapers: Strengths: Targeting is possible through profiling readership Good level of market coverage Weaknesses: Static media, not suitable for product demonstration Potential for poor reproduction, sometimes limited to black and white print Short-life span, i.e. todays newspapers become tomorrows rubbish Magazines: Strengths: High quality reproduction, of color images Targeting is possible through specialist publications Good pass on readership Weaknesses: Static media, not suitable for product demonstration Lengthy lead-time between advert being placed and magazine being published Outdoor: Strengths: High repeat exposure to advert Relatively low cost Low levels of competition, in terms of advertising clutter Weaknesses: Limited audience selectivity / targeting possible Static media, not suitable for product demonstrations Difficult to monitor effectiveness â€Å"Make them your own† is the name of the campaign launched by Levis to boost the sale of Denim jeans. This is one of the most aggressive marketing and advertising strategy followed by Levis to move up the sales. The theme of this marketing campaign is narcissistic youth. It will feature youth who will check themselves out in Denim blue jeans. The advertising will target the age group of 18 – 24 years. Mostly levy also select TV, Magazine, and Newspaper as a media for delivering there massage about their product in customer mind. PRINT Ads: This ad focus on that even in bad time our company ABC produce good quality of product in comparison to our competitor. ABC Company compares their product with competitors in quality and design. Through this ads company want to show that our product is superior in quality and design. Sale promotion: Sale promotion is collection of various consumers and trade promotional tool such as rebate, discount, gift, contest, coupons, price deal, contest game, sampling etc. to increase sale of products. There are certain objectives of sale promotion. However main objective is to increase immediate sale because Sales Managers are under great pressure to produce results quickly. Objective: There are certain objectives of sale promotion that are as follow: To increase immediate customer sale To increase support among the marketers sales force. To gain the support of the trade in marketing the product Reasons for Growth of Sales Promotion: There are number of reason for growth of company in sale promotion some are as follow: Increasing Competition Due to increase in competition, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to compete on quality. They are therefore resorting to more innovative methods of sales promotion. In order to have a competitive advantage over its competitors like Levis, Pepe, Killer and others, Spykar Jeans, once a year has a grand sale of up to 50%. Customers Have Become More Price Sensitive: The increase price sensitivity is direct result of rampant inflation. Economic support this trend further, as a result customers and dealer became more sensitive toward price. If the customers get branded jeans at half the actual price, then they are definitely going to make huge purchases of Spykar Jeans because they want value for their money, as they are price sensitive. Sales Promotions Generally Create an Immediate Positive Impact on Sales: Advertising, personal selling and other methods of promotion produce slower impact on sales in compared to sales promotion. Sales promotions are mostly for short duration, for a specified period, leading to a sense of urgency in consumers to buy now. This creates an immediate positive impact on sales. Products have become more standardized: In many product categories there is proliferation of brand or line extension and me too many brands. Most of brand perceived by consumer varies little in price. Due to this it became very difficult for advertiser to reposition their product in customers mind. Due to which they focus on more and more on sale promotion to get immediate result. Advertising Has Become More Expensive and Less Effective: All the advertising media have become quite expensive. Audio-visual medium, which is considered as the most effective for short-duration ads, may cost in excess of Rs. 1 lakh for a 10 second exposure during prime time. In many cases, consumers have reached a point of boredom due to excessive advertising on TV. Firms with small budgets cannot compete with big companies, which spend huge sums of money on advertising. For these small budget firms, sales promotion is a more cost-effective promotion method to produce sales results. Trade Has Become More Powerful: At present time Retailers and wholesalers have became more powerful and demand extra facility from company to promote their product. Company has no other alternative. Besides these there are also various kind reason such as Excess Stocks, Impulse Buying Is Increasing, Sales Promotions Maximize Profits etc. Promotion Strategies: Promotional strategy is mostly run to change consumers behavior, to increase brand image, to increase profit, to increase sale of various good. There are mostly two kind of sale promotion, one is directed toward consumer and other one is directed toward trade such as dealer, supplier, retailer etc. Consumer sale promotion tool: There are a lot of promotional tool used to increase sale. Consumer sale promotion is directed toward consumer. It stimulate consumer to purchase their product rapidly. There are a lot of tool that are as follow: Price deal: Price deal is temporary reduction in price of product. There are two type of deal: cents-off deals and price-pack deals. Price deal is given at various times to stimulate purchase of jeans. Coupon: A coupon is typically a printed certificate giving the bearer a stated price reduction or special value on a specific product, generally for a specific period. Various company issue various kind of coupon that contain various discount price , customer get the advantage of this discount and purchase jeans at low price. Offer: There are various kind of gift is offer by various jeans industry. For example the branding magazine said that the Gap will be conducting a marketing campaign centered on the idea that your favorite songs and your favorite jeans, Gap jeans, make the perfect fit. Customers who try on a pair of the retailers new jeans will receive a free iTMS download. The campaign will be marketed with print and TV ads, and will feature TV commercials with musicians singing covers of their favorite song while wearing Gap jeans. The company will be offering those collected covers in a CD at retail Gap locations for customers who make a US$60 or more Gap purchase. Premium: Sometime various companies like Levy, Denim etc. offer some gift or at bargain price to encourage customer buying. Sampling: Some company like American eagles to known customer feedback provide free simple of various jeans according to their preference. Advertising Specialities: Advertising specialities also call a promotional product. It mostly given to our loyal customers. It includes various card like birthday card, New Year card. It is mostly done to retain old customer. Trade sale promotion tool: Objectives of Trade Sales Promotion: Gain/maintain distribution Influence resellers to promote product Influence resellers to offer price discount Increase reseller inventory Defend against competitors Avoid reduction of normal prices There are various sale promotion tools that stimulate trade to promote company product. There are a lot of trade sale promotion tools some are as discussed below: Trade Allowances: Trade allowancesare short-term special allowances, discounts, or deals granted to resellers to stimulate reseller to rapid purchase of their product. Point-of-Purchase Display: Point-of-purchase displays are generally used at the retail level to call customer attention to a featured product. In this company employees observe every retail shop and those retail shop that display more company product will be winner of special gift or prize Trade Shows: A trade show is periodic, semi periodic public event at which supplier displays their jeans product and provides information about jeans quality and price to potential buyer. After implementing these different techniques of sale promotion we monitor result and evaluate these by comparing with objective set before implementation of plan. Public relation Public relation is nothing but creating a favorable relation for organization and product which is done through used of various communication channel and tool. So public relation is mostly done to improve the image of company and build good image in customers mind. So public relation may be define as â€Å"Public Relations is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organizations ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values. Objective: Like other aspect of marketing, public relation is also used to address several broad aspect of marketing like: Building Product Awareness–When introducing a new product or relaunching an existing product, marketers can use a PR element that generates consumer attention and awareness through media placements and special events. Creating Interest:Public Relation create public interest to used the product at least for once time. Providing Information:Through the Public relation we can provide a lot of information about company activity and their product feature and service provided by company. This information is delivered to public through newspaper, article website, collateral material; PR helps in delivering information that helps to public in understanding the product feature. Stimulating Demand:A positive article in a newspaper, on TV, news show or mentioned on the Internet, often results in a discernable increase in product sales. Reinforcing the Brand:In many companies like levy, denim jeans company the public relations function is also involved with brand reinforcement by maintaining positive relationships with key audiences, and thereby aiding in building a strong image. Direct Marketing Direct marketing is business of selling company product directly to customers through mail order, telephone, fax, e-mails, or web selling, rather than through retailers. Objective: There are mostly to objective for which direct marketing is carried out these are as follow: Convert not user to user. It is mostly done to obtain new client. The identification of new potential clients is very crucial when it comes to recruit new prospects and transformed them into your clients. The perpetual loyalty of customers. A loyal consumer cost less than new customers. Strategy: Various jeans industry like denim, Levi Strauss Co involved in direct marketing to get more market share. These companies sent a mail-order catalog to approximately prospective customers. 100-page catalog, developed in-house, targets both men and women and also contains 10 pages devoted to home products. There are various tools for direct marketing these are as :Direct response television marketing. Besides these jeans producing company also used various methods to promote their product. One method that Levis has recently taken is Path Breaking Strategy. Path breaking strategy by Levis: This strategy is mostly for those jeans whose cost above Rs.1400. We know a lot of thing about EMIs for house, car and other kind of white goods. But these EMIs is first time adopted by Levis for jeans.This idea has been conceptualized by Levis. Downturn market, cost cutting everywhere and empty pockets is the present situation; and here to curb all these hindrances, Levis is now, for the first time ever offering EMI facilities on its apparel wear in India. Simply shop for more than Rs. 1500 and you can avail this offer. This amount will be set off through your credit card in three equal installments. They have also tied up with ICICI Bank for the credit card settlement. There are certain objectives behind this strategy that are as follow: To increase the sales of premium jeans wear category that is worth more than Rs. 4000 per denim. To ensure sales throughout the year irrespective of seasonality:How will this objective be achie Integrated Marketing Communication Program for Jeans Integrated Marketing Communication Program for Jeans Executive summary: Various jeans industry such as Denim, Levis, and Disney etc. design various integrated marketing program. Although common objective of all IMC program is increase brand awareness, sale and design a unique image in customers mind. In order to address and attract customer all jeans industry launch various campaign. To communicate with public and customers they advertise their campaign on TV, magazine, online and radio. Through their advertisement they want to design their brand image in customer mind. Besides advertisement, they also carried out promotion activity, public relation, direct marketing etc. Direct marketing is although time consuming but most effective tool for communication. Various jeans industry also organizes various events in order to communicate properly with customers, for example Aadharshila Brand solution was planning to launch an event called â€Å"JEAN JANOON† for their client â€Å"The HUB† a multi brand outlet for apparel. Main purpose of this event is to increase the sale of jeans. Before designing IMC program this company carried out market research in order to judge customers behaviors toward jeans. For research they design the strategy for â€Å"JEAN JANOON† event. During the event they decided to get feedback from customer who visits â€Å"The HUB† multiband retail outlet so that appropriate primary data can be collected for designing IMC strategy for â€Å"The HUB†. Before designing integrated marketing communication program it is necessary to judge consumers behavior toward jeans , it is necessary to known customers liking and disliking, these data provide various support during designing of IMC program. Although there are various media available for communicating but Printads in magazine and news paper is seen most effective medium followed by television. After Research survey done by various jeans company, it has been found that male respondents were less brand conscious than female. There is no particular fashion trend among males, but females are more conscious towards seasonal fashion trends. â€Å"Fitting† and â€Å"style† are the major attributes considered by customer while buying jeans. Marketing plan plan Situation Analysis: Every organization faces a lot of problem at present time so it became necessary for every organization that before setting any objective carried out situation analysis in order to recognize strength, weakness, opportunities and threat present in our organization. According to Sally and John, marketing plans are â€Å"the written document or blueprint for implementing and controlling an organizations marketing activities related to a particular marketing strategy† . A successful marketing plan is able to improve organizations profits and growth, uses in objective setting and monitors results. So to gain a successful market plan it is necessary to to understand the current situation comprehensively and trends affecting the future of the organization.There are two major reasons to explain why situation analysis plays a vital role in developing marketing plan. Firstly, dynamic marketing environment will lead to uncertainty, threats and opportunities for marketers. Marketing managers who success to know changes in environment through situation analysis can lead their companies to capitalize on opportunities and cope with threats created by changes. Then, systematically analyzing situational environments in order to identify our customers and understand their needs. There are certain opportunities in jeans industry, such as increase women wear collection, increase market and market share through integrated PR, and advertisement and promotional campaign. Besides opportunities there is a lot of threat that create barrier for entry in to jeans industry. These threats are as follow: Increasing competition in ethical fashion Ethical brand is not taken seriously by public High price and loyalty decrease loyalty toward brand Main objective behind situation analysis is to known analyze customer, competitor and there strategy. Marketing objective: After situation analysis we became able to known our organization strength, weakness, opportunities and threat present in environment. It provides a lot of support in setting of objective. There may be a lot of marketing objective, some are as follow: Increase market share To create new successful denim and clothing rang and expand it to convert not user in to user. Increase sale by 50% in 6 month from the launch of public campaign Create awareness among target audience. Use excessive advertising especially using media preferred by the target market. Create product belonging and position among buyers mind Marketing strategies: Toachieve these objective we implement various strategy. Target market: Urban personality: Affluent young professional Prosperous young professional Students and cosmopolitan Marketing Mix Strategies : Main aim of various jeans industry to produce high quality jeans in various qualities such as five packet jeans in various size. This is mostly done to capture youth attention. They produce jeans in various colour to capture more market share. Must of jeans brand such as levis, denim, dem lea diesel jeans jump in to Indian market by producing high quality of jeans Pricing range from 4.7 $ to 9.5$. Jeans do not need too much promotion. It is done mostly by fair, E – commerce and agent The distribution channels for jeans industry are as follows. MANUFACTURER (COMPANY) WHOLESELLER JEANS SEND TO RETAILER CUSTOMER Internal Process It is as follows. Sample Cutting Stitching Washing Pressing and labeling Finishing Dispatched to store Packing and containers Explanation The sample is first send by the buyer. Its called a gold seal sample. In cutting dept, one piece is placed on the other and in this way a bundle of 50 Jeans is made. Then the cutter cuts it. In the stitching dept, front end or the upper part is made. Then backend is made and they are assembled together in the assembly end. Then the belt is made. Washing can be done by simple garment wash or through the stone wash and chemicals. It is done according to the buyers request. In Pressing and labeling dept, the Jeans are pressed and then labeled for identification. In finishing dept, the quality of jeans is checked and mistakes are rectified. Then the Jeans dispatched to the store. Then packing is done. It is done according to the buyers request. Then they are sent to the containers. Samples of Product; Implementation tactics : Launch a blind ad campaign on billboards and magazines in all A class areas of major cities and magazine. Heavy advertising on TV, newspapers and magazines Set displays of jeans in showrooms and major dealer outlets in all cities. Reduce number of billboards, television and magazines advertisements. Continue Advertising Evaluation, Monitoring and Control: Goal of marketing plan is to achieve market objective that are established before implementation of marketing plan. We evaluate and control our strategic tactic by comparing our result with standard established before setting of plan, by measuring customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. If result is less than our standard than there any is default in implementation and monitoring. The people who are responsible for the monitoring and control of the marketing plan involves, the Marketing Executives, Sales Managers, Media Managers, Market Research Departments, and the Production Managers. Some activities must be carried out for precisely and closely evaluating the effectiveness of the strategies and tactics for example the gathering and structuring of data regarding market, product, consumers and the pricing trends, then the generation of daily sales report should be maintained and then in the end continuous reconfirming of the marketing budget and activities by the managers of different divisions. The Integrated Marketing Communication Plan Integrated Marketing Communications is a term used to describe a holistic approach to marketing communication. It aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. The concept includes online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and television. A company develops its integrated marketing communication programme using all the elements of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) So Integrated marketing communication is integration of all marketing tools, approaches, and resources within a company which maximizes impact on consumer mind and which results into maximum profit at minimum cost. Promotional activities include Advertising, sales promotion, and personal selling activities. It also includes internet marketing, sponsorship marketing, direct marketing, database marketing and public relations. And integration of all these promotional tools along with other components of marketing mix to gain edge over competitor is called Integrated Marketing Communication. Situational analysis: First of all we carried out we carried out situation analysis in order to unedrtood problem. In this we identify our compititors and their strategy for example Levi carried out compititor analysis and find out various strategy adopted by Tommy Hilfiger, JNCO, VF Corporation, Gap, Calvin Klein, Diesel and Paris Blues. After situation analysis Levy Strauss Company find out thattheCalifornia gold rush outfitter whose trademark blue jeans have been an American clothing staple for generations, had fallen on hard times by 2004 and needed a change in strategic direction.After seven consecutive years of falling sales, profits turned to losses in 2003. Management responded to the decline by moving its manufacturing plants offshore and by introducing a new line of discount jeans at Wal-Mart.It also considered selling off its Dockers casual pants unit in order to focus on its jeans business. Under situation analysis we also analyze financial position of company. IMC objective: There are various IMC objective set by jeans company after situation analysis in order to accomplish their goal. Some of objective are as follow: To Increase sale by 50% in six month To Increase brand awareness To Increase customer loyality To Increase desire of customer To Increase repeat purchase To measure customer satisfaction To create relationship with customer on personal level To control and observe public opinion To receive feedback from customer on regular basis Media objectivesstate the impact that you expect to have on an audience in terms of reach and frequency. Objectives must meet the following criteria: Measurability Quantifiability Realism time-specificity Budget determination: We need to establish what amount of money will be needed to achieve the IMC objectives.Although there is various methods present to determine what amount of money invest on IMC. These methods are as follow: Affordable Method Percentage of Sales Method Unit of Sales Method Zero Budgeting Method Inaffordable methodwe invest money on IMC as soon as we can afford. However inPercentage of Sales Methodamount of money invest on IMC tool depend on what amount of sale we expect to achieve during course of year. These percentages are mostly adhoc and sometime based on judgment. InUnit of Sales MethodCompany allocate a certain proportion of cost of product to promotion. Thus say if ex factory cost of the product is say Rs 100/ the company will allot Rs.10/- toward promotion cost. Hence if company expects sale 10,000 unit of the product, thus allocated IMC budget will be Rs.100.000/-. In Zero Budgeting Method, company determine what need to achieve in term of sale and then rework backward in term of what money will be needed to be allocate to deliver those customers. Thus if company believe that in order to achieve their sales, 10,000 customers need to purchase their jeans once during the planning period than it will work out what number of prospective customers will needed to be tar geted through ATL and BTL activity, in order to achieve that result. IMC Methodologies There are various component of integrated marketing communication that is as follow: Advertisement Advertisement is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas or products by an identified sponsor. Objective of any ads is to increase brand awareness. Objectives: There are mostly three objective of advertisement compaign, that are as follow: Inform Persuade Remind Inform: Informative advertising, seeks to tell the market about the jeans, explain the new quality added in jeans, provide information on pricing, and build awareness of both the jeans quality and the company. Such objectives are normally pursued at the launch of a new quality jeans, or re-launch / up-date of an existing jean. Persuade: Here objectives are to encourage the target audience to switch brands, make the purchase, and create a preference in the market for the jeans as opposed to its competition. Advertising of this nature is required in highly competitive markets, where a range of jeans design competes directly with each other. In such circumstances businesses often seek to differentiate their jeans through Comparison Advertising – either directly or indirectly comparing its jeans to that of its competitors. Remind: Reminder Advertising, is used to maintain interest and awareness of a well established jeans brand in the market, often in the latter stages of its product life cycle. It is often used at the Point-of-Purchase to remind consumers of the Brand. Advertisement budget: Having identified advertising objectives, the advertising budget must be set. Determining exactly how much a business should spend on advertising to achieve the desired level of sales. Commonly, the decision is based on past experience of expenditure on advertising, and the sales subsequently achieved. There are however a number of factors that can be considered in setting the advertising budget Factors influencing the setting of advertising Budgets: Product life cycle stage:New products in the Launch stage of their Product Life Cycle, will normally require greater expenditure on advertising to create product awareness, and encourage consumers to trial the product. Whilst products that have reached Maturity in their product life cycle, will often require smaller advertising budgets to achieve the level of sales required. Competition:The number of competitors in the market, and their expenditure on advertising competing products, will influence a business to spend to a similar or higher degree. Product Differentiation:A product very similar to other products on the market may require greater expenditure on advertising to differentiate it from its competitors. Advertising Strategy: Developing an Advertising Strategy to achieve the objectives of a campaign, requires that consideration be given to both the ‘Message which will be communicated and the ‘Media through which it will be sent Advertising Message An advertising campaign, no matter how much money is spent, no matter what media is used, will only be successful if the Message appeals to the target audience. Given the level of advertising which bombards the average consumer, a successful advertising message must stand out amongst the advertising clutter. Thus marketing professionals are required to be creative, imaginative and innovative in developing the advertising message, both in terms of what is said, and How it is said? What is said This is often referred to as the ‘Big Idea, and will normally address the key benefits sought by the target audience, motivating the audience to pay attention. Given the constant search for new ways to appeal to target audiences, it is difficult to categories the content of advertising messages which a business may send, below we include a couple of examples of actual message strategy. During delivery of advertisement massage in customer mind take the personality symbol, lifestyle and musical as consideration. In addition the tone of the advertisement will need to be established, which can be either positive or negative. The advert may therefore promote positive feelings of fun, contentment, and happiness or take on a more negative, somber, or even threatening tone. Selecting Advertising Media: In addition to deciding upon the content, style and tone of the advertising message, the media through which the message will be communicated to the target audience must also be selected. Mostly for jeans advertisement we select media such as magazine, newspaper and outdoor. TV rarely used for advertisement of jeans. In order to select the most appropriate media, consideration must should be given to various advantage and disadvantage of various media. Strengths and weakness of various media are as given below: Television : Strengths Dynamic attention getting media, combining visual, sound and animated stimulus. Strong potential Impact High market coverage Good at demonstrating products Weaknesses: Highly expensive Poor at communicating lengthy technical information Newspapers: Strengths: Targeting is possible through profiling readership Good level of market coverage Weaknesses: Static media, not suitable for product demonstration Potential for poor reproduction, sometimes limited to black and white print Short-life span, i.e. todays newspapers become tomorrows rubbish Magazines: Strengths: High quality reproduction, of color images Targeting is possible through specialist publications Good pass on readership Weaknesses: Static media, not suitable for product demonstration Lengthy lead-time between advert being placed and magazine being published Outdoor: Strengths: High repeat exposure to advert Relatively low cost Low levels of competition, in terms of advertising clutter Weaknesses: Limited audience selectivity / targeting possible Static media, not suitable for product demonstrations Difficult to monitor effectiveness â€Å"Make them your own† is the name of the campaign launched by Levis to boost the sale of Denim jeans. This is one of the most aggressive marketing and advertising strategy followed by Levis to move up the sales. The theme of this marketing campaign is narcissistic youth. It will feature youth who will check themselves out in Denim blue jeans. The advertising will target the age group of 18 – 24 years. Mostly levy also select TV, Magazine, and Newspaper as a media for delivering there massage about their product in customer mind. PRINT Ads: This ad focus on that even in bad time our company ABC produce good quality of product in comparison to our competitor. ABC Company compares their product with competitors in quality and design. Through this ads company want to show that our product is superior in quality and design. Sale promotion: Sale promotion is collection of various consumers and trade promotional tool such as rebate, discount, gift, contest, coupons, price deal, contest game, sampling etc. to increase sale of products. There are certain objectives of sale promotion. However main objective is to increase immediate sale because Sales Managers are under great pressure to produce results quickly. Objective: There are certain objectives of sale promotion that are as follow: To increase immediate customer sale To increase support among the marketers sales force. To gain the support of the trade in marketing the product Reasons for Growth of Sales Promotion: There are number of reason for growth of company in sale promotion some are as follow: Increasing Competition Due to increase in competition, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to compete on quality. They are therefore resorting to more innovative methods of sales promotion. In order to have a competitive advantage over its competitors like Levis, Pepe, Killer and others, Spykar Jeans, once a year has a grand sale of up to 50%. Customers Have Become More Price Sensitive: The increase price sensitivity is direct result of rampant inflation. Economic support this trend further, as a result customers and dealer became more sensitive toward price. If the customers get branded jeans at half the actual price, then they are definitely going to make huge purchases of Spykar Jeans because they want value for their money, as they are price sensitive. Sales Promotions Generally Create an Immediate Positive Impact on Sales: Advertising, personal selling and other methods of promotion produce slower impact on sales in compared to sales promotion. Sales promotions are mostly for short duration, for a specified period, leading to a sense of urgency in consumers to buy now. This creates an immediate positive impact on sales. Products have become more standardized: In many product categories there is proliferation of brand or line extension and me too many brands. Most of brand perceived by consumer varies little in price. Due to this it became very difficult for advertiser to reposition their product in customers mind. Due to which they focus on more and more on sale promotion to get immediate result. Advertising Has Become More Expensive and Less Effective: All the advertising media have become quite expensive. Audio-visual medium, which is considered as the most effective for short-duration ads, may cost in excess of Rs. 1 lakh for a 10 second exposure during prime time. In many cases, consumers have reached a point of boredom due to excessive advertising on TV. Firms with small budgets cannot compete with big companies, which spend huge sums of money on advertising. For these small budget firms, sales promotion is a more cost-effective promotion method to produce sales results. Trade Has Become More Powerful: At present time Retailers and wholesalers have became more powerful and demand extra facility from company to promote their product. Company has no other alternative. Besides these there are also various kind reason such as Excess Stocks, Impulse Buying Is Increasing, Sales Promotions Maximize Profits etc. Promotion Strategies: Promotional strategy is mostly run to change consumers behavior, to increase brand image, to increase profit, to increase sale of various good. There are mostly two kind of sale promotion, one is directed toward consumer and other one is directed toward trade such as dealer, supplier, retailer etc. Consumer sale promotion tool: There are a lot of promotional tool used to increase sale. Consumer sale promotion is directed toward consumer. It stimulate consumer to purchase their product rapidly. There are a lot of tool that are as follow: Price deal: Price deal is temporary reduction in price of product. There are two type of deal: cents-off deals and price-pack deals. Price deal is given at various times to stimulate purchase of jeans. Coupon: A coupon is typically a printed certificate giving the bearer a stated price reduction or special value on a specific product, generally for a specific period. Various company issue various kind of coupon that contain various discount price , customer get the advantage of this discount and purchase jeans at low price. Offer: There are various kind of gift is offer by various jeans industry. For example the branding magazine said that the Gap will be conducting a marketing campaign centered on the idea that your favorite songs and your favorite jeans, Gap jeans, make the perfect fit. Customers who try on a pair of the retailers new jeans will receive a free iTMS download. The campaign will be marketed with print and TV ads, and will feature TV commercials with musicians singing covers of their favorite song while wearing Gap jeans. The company will be offering those collected covers in a CD at retail Gap locations for customers who make a US$60 or more Gap purchase. Premium: Sometime various companies like Levy, Denim etc. offer some gift or at bargain price to encourage customer buying. Sampling: Some company like American eagles to known customer feedback provide free simple of various jeans according to their preference. Advertising Specialities: Advertising specialities also call a promotional product. It mostly given to our loyal customers. It includes various card like birthday card, New Year card. It is mostly done to retain old customer. Trade sale promotion tool: Objectives of Trade Sales Promotion: Gain/maintain distribution Influence resellers to promote product Influence resellers to offer price discount Increase reseller inventory Defend against competitors Avoid reduction of normal prices There are various sale promotion tools that stimulate trade to promote company product. There are a lot of trade sale promotion tools some are as discussed below: Trade Allowances: Trade allowancesare short-term special allowances, discounts, or deals granted to resellers to stimulate reseller to rapid purchase of their product. Point-of-Purchase Display: Point-of-purchase displays are generally used at the retail level to call customer attention to a featured product. In this company employees observe every retail shop and those retail shop that display more company product will be winner of special gift or prize Trade Shows: A trade show is periodic, semi periodic public event at which supplier displays their jeans product and provides information about jeans quality and price to potential buyer. After implementing these different techniques of sale promotion we monitor result and evaluate these by comparing with objective set before implementation of plan. Public relation Public relation is nothing but creating a favorable relation for organization and product which is done through used of various communication channel and tool. So public relation is mostly done to improve the image of company and build good image in customers mind. So public relation may be define as â€Å"Public Relations is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organizations ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values. Objective: Like other aspect of marketing, public relation is also used to address several broad aspect of marketing like: Building Product Awareness–When introducing a new product or relaunching an existing product, marketers can use a PR element that generates consumer attention and awareness through media placements and special events. Creating Interest:Public Relation create public interest to used the product at least for once time. Providing Information:Through the Public relation we can provide a lot of information about company activity and their product feature and service provided by company. This information is delivered to public through newspaper, article website, collateral material; PR helps in delivering information that helps to public in understanding the product feature. Stimulating Demand:A positive article in a newspaper, on TV, news show or mentioned on the Internet, often results in a discernable increase in product sales. Reinforcing the Brand:In many companies like levy, denim jeans company the public relations function is also involved with brand reinforcement by maintaining positive relationships with key audiences, and thereby aiding in building a strong image. Direct Marketing Direct marketing is business of selling company product directly to customers through mail order, telephone, fax, e-mails, or web selling, rather than through retailers. Objective: There are mostly to objective for which direct marketing is carried out these are as follow: Convert not user to user. It is mostly done to obtain new client. The identification of new potential clients is very crucial when it comes to recruit new prospects and transformed them into your clients. The perpetual loyalty of customers. A loyal consumer cost less than new customers. Strategy: Various jeans industry like denim, Levi Strauss Co involved in direct marketing to get more market share. These companies sent a mail-order catalog to approximately prospective customers. 100-page catalog, developed in-house, targets both men and women and also contains 10 pages devoted to home products. There are various tools for direct marketing these are as :Direct response television marketing. Besides these jeans producing company also used various methods to promote their product. One method that Levis has recently taken is Path Breaking Strategy. Path breaking strategy by Levis: This strategy is mostly for those jeans whose cost above Rs.1400. We know a lot of thing about EMIs for house, car and other kind of white goods. But these EMIs is first time adopted by Levis for jeans.This idea has been conceptualized by Levis. Downturn market, cost cutting everywhere and empty pockets is the present situation; and here to curb all these hindrances, Levis is now, for the first time ever offering EMI facilities on its apparel wear in India. Simply shop for more than Rs. 1500 and you can avail this offer. This amount will be set off through your credit card in three equal installments. They have also tied up with ICICI Bank for the credit card settlement. There are certain objectives behind this strategy that are as follow: To increase the sales of premium jeans wear category that is worth more than Rs. 4000 per denim. To ensure sales throughout the year irrespective of seasonality:How will this objective be achie

God and Person :: essays research papers

God and Person   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The word â€Å"person† can be interpreted and defined in many different ways, and there are many different aspects to consider when stating what a person really is. Accomplishments, goals, likes, dislikes, and experiences in life make a person who he or she really is. Traits most â€Å"central† to being a person include consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the capacity to communicate, and having a self-concept. A mind does contribute to a person’s self—a mind is what makes up part of a person, yet does not define one. A soul is the greatest element of a person. Your instincts, personality, and true feelings are all held within the soul of a person. But last, but not least, society has a major contribution and influence on a person, and can sometimes help define what a person really is. There are so many different ideas running free in society that people latch on to, creating and assisting in molding who a person really is. Certain principles and standards of society influence people’s choices and beliefs in life. Society is not a substantial part of who a particular person is, but it is an amazing contributing factor. Events, relationships, and situations throughout someone’s life do show what a person really is. A person is someone who has many different emotions and thoughts within themselves, and the life that one lives through, or the events that one sees, also helps to establish who and what a person evolves and discovers himself or herself to be. A person is someone who stands up for what they believe in to help a cause, someone who appreciates who they are and what life really is, and someone who can decipher the concept and meaning of right from wrong. A person has many aspects, but it is not one particular thing that makes a person a person. It’s mind, body, soul, social issues, and other qualities rolled into one. Epistemological considerations are also used in the definition of a person when considering and bringing God into the picture. Epistemology is being able to know what you know about God; therefore, a person is also made up of beliefs and ideas too. We know about God by reading books, listening to the Word of God at Mass, looking over the Bible, etc., but you must often have faith to even believe in God. Faith and mystery both play majors roles when considering God in the light of the human person.

Computerized Scheduling System Essay

A computerized reservations and scheduling system is provided which alternately allows transportation consumers to select from pre-scheduled transportation services provided by transportation providers or to negotiate and contract with transportation providers who have available unscheduled transportation space. The system comprises a central computerized data base. Transportation providers and consumers alike access the computer via a plurality of terminal units. The central computerized data base comprises a â€Å"maybe† file for storing information regarding available unscheduled transportation space which may be offered by a provider for service if a suitable consumer demand exists and for storing information regarding unscheduled transportation space which is needed by consumers. The â€Å"maybe† file facilitates negotiating and contracting between the parties. Scheduling is the process of deciding how to commit resources between a variety of possible tasks. Time can be specified (scheduling a flight to leave at 8:00) or floating as part of a sequence of events. The word may also refer to: * I/O scheduling, the order in which I/O requests are submitted to a block device in Computer Operating Systems * Scheduling (broadcasting), the minute planning of the content of a radio or television broadcast channel * Scheduling algorithm * Scheduling (computing), the way various processes are assigned in multitasking and multiprocessing operating system design * Scheduling (production processes), the planning of the production or the operation * Schedule (workplace), ensuring that an organization has sufficient staffing levels at all times * Job scheduler, an enterprise software application in charge of unattended background executions. * Job Shop Scheduling, an optimization problem in computer science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling Scheduling is a key concept in computer multitasking, multiprocessing operating system and real-time operating system designs. Scheduling refers to the way processes are assigned to run on the available CPUs, since there are typically many more processes running than there are available CPUs. This assignment is carried out by softwares known as a scheduler and dispatcher. The scheduler is concerned mainly with: * Throughput – number of processes that complete their execution per time unit. * Latency, specifically: * Turnaround – total time between submission of a process and its completion. * Response time – amount of time it takes from when a request was submitted until the first response is produced. * Fairness – Equal CPU time to each process (or more generally appropriate times according to each process’ priority).

Kraft’s Acquisition of Cadbury Essay

The Kraft Foods Group Inc. (â€Å"Kraft†) operates in the food and beverage industry. Kraft is the U.S.’s #1 food company and #2 in the world (after Nestlà ©) in sales according to Hoover’s 2009. Their competitive advantages are: global scale [distribution around 150 countries, (LexisNexis, 2012)]; modern technology, equipment and R&D (â€Å"Kraft deploys SAP Tech. platform†, 2008); their partnerships with companies like AOL TWX, Rainforest Alliance, etc. (â€Å"Kraft Foods partners with Rainforest Alliance on sustainable coffee initiative†, 2009); and their supply chain (www.pincsolutions.com/kraft-foods, 2012). These advantages can attribute Kraft’s Net Profit Margin of 10.08%, compared to the industry’s average of 5.37% (Hoover’s, 2012). On the other hand, Cadbury is a confectionery and is the industry’s second-largest globally after Mars (Gray, 2009) and the company operates in approx. 50 countries worldwide. Their capabilities, brand popularity and innovation represent their main competitive advantages (â€Å"Using Open Innovation to Ensure Competitive Advantage†, 2010). With the acquisition, Cadbury will benefit from Kraft’s scale (Birchall & Wiggins, 2009), their distribution in emerging markets (Elms, â€Å"Kraft and Cadbury) and their marketing muscle (English, 2009), which will result in a faster growth for Cadbury. Kraft will benefit by diversifying even more on related business (they already own Toblerone, Nutter Butter, etc,) and also from Cadbury’s capabilities (brand, innovation, know-how, etc.) that will likely represent as an additional source of value creation for Kraft. Together the companies will surely impair the competition: for example the termination of Hershey’s license to make and sell the Cadbury brands in the U.S. (30% of total sales, Hoover’s, 2008). Currently Kraft if facing two major issues, and they are: – The acquisition only makes sense if Kraft can obtain a return on investment capital bigger than the cost of capital within a reasonable timeframe. – The competition with Nestle, Hershey and Mars. The recommendations are the following: Kraft should boost the growth and profitability of Cadbury by exploiting their scale, marketing potential, placing in emerging markets and partnerships, as they did with Post cereals in 2008 (Hoover’s, 2009). Additionally on the functional level, Cadbury’s legal department should terminate Hershey’s license to sell and distribute their products in the U.S. and transfer this licenses to Kraft. Kraft should also take advantage of the Cadbury acquisition (diversifying on related business) and this should result in the creation of additional value for Kraft, resulting in a competitive advantage vs. competitors (Nestlà ©, Mars, etc.). A â€Å"tapered† integration of Cadbury is reasonable: selling the distribution rights to competitors in the markets where Kraft is not present (43 countries); at the same time Kraft should exploit the exclusive distribution and fabrication rights for Cadbury’s products where they are present.