Rollerblade

SEMINAR 1 TASK 1 – Marketing in the 21th century 1. Short description of the company “Rollerblade® is the world leader in the in-line skate market, Rollerblade pioneered the in-line skating boom by changing the perception of in-line skates. ” “Once seen as strictly an off-season training device for hockey players, in-line skates are now a widely accepted “lifestyle” product that can be used by just about anyone. Today professional athletes, fitness enthusiasts and fun seekers of all ages enjoy the sport of in-line skating. ” The goal of Rollerblade company is to reach each one of us as its target market. . Changes in marketing today Marketing is undergoing changes. Companies have to focus on another type of marketing to be in agreement with environment/society transformations and then moving from a global marketing to a more specified marketing. The customer-oriented marketing is the most often used marketing approach today, the importance of mass marketing decreasing on the other hand. The very essence of this customer focused concept means knowing customers instead of planning a unique strategy focalized on products for all of them.

Current organizations focus on the needs and wants analysis of target markets to provide them with the desired satisfaction. “They seek to provide an array of products and services that are packaged and tailored to their customer [demands]. ” This is why each company should well define market and be aware of all the actual changes to effectively satisfy customer and then achieve a long term customer relationship. In order to accomplish this aim by gaining competitive advantage, the company has to make organizational changes and increase the quality level of the products. There is a need to differentiate the offerings by treating the customers differently and then create exceptional customer value. ” 3. What are the changes undertaken by the company Rollerblade that we can notice? The company Rollerblade responds to the changes which occur in marketing nowadays. Indeed, as we can see on its website, the firm is adopting a customer-oriented marketing: – They offer different kind of products and services according to people’s use as well as their age bracket by separating its target market in 4 categories: Fitness, Urban, Kids and Street.

By implementing this one-to-one marketing, Rollerblade may attract more customers because no matter what those people need, they can find the proper product which suits to them. – They offer the possibility to use social networks knowing it is a way to advertise itself very fashionable and desired by people at the moment. – They write articles about upcoming events to attend or previous ones. This is something which for everyone can develop an interest as it provides useful and trendy information. They display pictures and videos on which people or famous athletes practicing in-line skates with their products to make internet users compare themselves to them using a very trendy way which attract people. – They give the opportunity to people to learn in-line skate by displaying several video lessons. It is a method that people rather like in the virtual world we are living in. As Rollerblade describes itself as a company continuing “to push the sport in new frontiers with innovative technologies, and revolutionary marketing programs to spread the gospel of in-line skating”, we can suppose that the irm won’t stop with those ideas… TASK 2 – Mission statement – the core brand value Case study: Google 1. How does Google’s mission statement meet its core brand value? A core brand value “generally consists of one primary characteristic of the category that the brand will develop as perception of being “best in the industry” as well as other positive attributes that will be associated with the brand”. The aim of it is to make the brand unique. The corporate mission of Google is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. As the company grew, it began offering more products and services than just Web searches through in-house innovations and acquisitions of other companies”. This evolution links to Google’s goal of reaching as many people as possible on the Web in order to sell more advertising and then earn money. Nevertheless, even with such a diverse portfolio (activities and products), each act of Google tends to a unique direction: the international information exchange.

Indeed, Google strives to provide users and providers with useful information by displaying ads related to the page they are visiting, by making improvements in keywords to make them get appropriate content and by giving a wide range of information from maps to videos aids thanks to a diversity of websites and computer programs (Google earth, Google video, Google chrome and so on). Thus, we can say that “Google makes the Web a more personalized experience. ”

Also, Google makes this information accessible to everybody by developing many different websites easy to use and on which data are updated thanks to a real time process to be spread in the worldwide. 2. Are the choices made previously by Google, in a competition point of view, beneficial? Google went into competition with both Microsoft with the concept of cloud computing (applications and files are stored on a large centralized supercomputer or network) and Apple on the fight for smart phones with the launch of Android as a mobile operating system.

With those two services, Google offers the best performance to its customers (free, fast and functional tools), develops a way thanks to which people will access more it and then increases its dominant position in the market. Indeed, iOS, iPhone’s mobile operating system is not free and can only be used with Macintosh products whereas Android, in addition of being free, is suitable for general public and is more compatible towards any phones such as Motorola, HTC or Sony Ericsson. As these brands cover most of the mobile phone consumers, Android is having a wide consumer group. . How to compete with Apple? “Apple is mesmerizing the market to think it is the center of the universe. Apple has claimed an incredibly large share of voice in both social and traditional media because of its public relations machine”. However, there are weaknesses in their position that we can make the most of it. An article explains that Google has the opportunity and the potential to win against Apple and make the people speaking about it in the next few years by creating “a viable way for developers to actually make money”.

Indeed, Apple’s creativity is hindered by the fact it uses a closed source system: only one company can work on its code in order to avoid idea thieves from competitors. Then Google by expanding the research and development department offering work to multiple firms should find out some ideas which could compete with the giant. Furthermore, “Google has the [necessary] market power, technology process, and relationships within the web world. ” Then, “unlike Apple’s closed vertically integrated system, Google could establish an amazing open garden. Anyway, competing Apple can lead to success taking into account the risk of it. For example, there is an absolute need of avoiding to copy the brand ideas in order not to go on trial with the company as Samsung is currently. TASK 3 – Marketing strategies plans THE 14 most commonly asked questions in preparing a Marketing Plan “A marketing plan is a business document written for the purpose of describing the current market position of a business and its marketing strategy for the period covered by the marketing plan. Marketing plans usually have a life of from one to five years.

The purpose of creating a marketing plan is to clearly show what steps will be undertaken to achieve the business’ marketing objectives. ” PREVIOUS ONE Executive Summary * What kind of company is it? * What is its mission statement? * What are its products and services? * What is the financial feasibility of the marketing project? Strategic Focus and Plan * What is the mission of the marketing project? * What is the competitive environment in which the marketing project takes place? * What would the situation analysis of the marketing project be? * What would the competitive analysis of the marketing project be?

Market Product Focus * What are the objectives of the marketing project? * What are the market targets? Marketing Program * What is the product strategy? * What is the price strategy? * What is the promotion strategy? * What is the place strategy? CURRENT ONE Executive Summary 1) What are the main features of the company? (type of firm, its mission statement, its products and services) Situational Analysis- SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) 2) What would the macro-environmental analysis be? (Political, Economic, Social and Technological “PEST” analysis) 3) What would the customer analysis be? number, type, value drivers, buying decision process, buying motivations and expectations) 4) What would the market analysis be? (competitive environment, market position, market share, competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, Porter analysis including collaborators analysis such as providers) 5) What would the internal analysis be? (company resources, goals, corporate culture) Objectives 6) What are the objectives of the marketing project? 7) What are the market targets? Marketing Program – 4P (marketing mix decisions) 8) What is the product strategy? (brand name, product portfolio, augmented product) ) What is the market segmentation decision? (by product, by customer segment or by geographical market) 10) What is the price strategy? (discount, elasticity, method) 11) What is the promotion strategy? (advertising, sales promotion, PR, viral marketing) 12) What is the place (distribution) strategy? (geographical coverage, logistics, distribution channels) Action program 13) How to implement the marketing project? (agenda, personnel, financial and management information systems requirements, contingencies) Financial Summary 14) What is the financial feasibility of the marketing project? breakeven analysis, income statement, contribution margin analysis) Scenarios 15) What are the short-term and long-term projections? (forecasts of revenues and expenses) 16) What are the plans of action for each prediction of future scenarios? ——————————————– [ 1 ]. Rollerblade official website. Available at http://www. rollerblade. com/about_us. php? slang=en [ 2 ]. Ibid. [ 5 ]. FILIPOVIE, V. (2000). Customer oriented marketing concept and strategic enterprise development in Balkan economies. Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization Vol. , No 8, pp. 9 – 16. Available at http://facta. junis. ni. ac. rs/eao/eao2000/eao2000-02. pdf [Accessed 14 Oct. 2011] [ 7 ]. Rollerblade official website. Available at http://www. rollerblade. com/about_us. php? slang=en [ 8 ]. RYAN B. , Core brand values. Available at http://meqz. com/brand-values. html [ 9 ]. Document from the seminar pack provided [ 10 ]. POLETTE C. How the Google Apple cloud computer will work? Available at http://computer. howstuffworks. com/google-apple-cloud-computer1. htm [ 11 ]. Document from the seminar pack provided [ 12 ]. MERCHANT N.

How to compete with Apple, Adobe and Google. Available at http://broadcast. oreilly. com/2010/02/how-to-compete-with-apple-adob. html [ 13 ]. Ibid. [ 14 ]. MERCHANT N. How to compete with Apple, Adobe and Google. Available at http://broadcast. oreilly. com/2010/02/how-to-compete-with-apple-adob. html [ 15 ]. MERCHANT N. How to compete with Apple, Adobe and Google. Available at http://broadcast. oreilly. com/2010/02/how-to-compete-with-apple-adob. html [ 16 ]. DUERMYER R. Marketing plan. Available at http://homebusiness. about. com/od/homebusinessglossar1/g/marketing-plan. htm