Integrated Marketing Communications - the Samsung Electronics Company - Case Study Example

INTЕGRАTЕD МАRKЕTING СОMMUNIСАTIОNS University Student Id Course Date Samsung phones Table of Contents Introduction 2 Samsung’s marketing communications 2 Samsung’s Brand Image 4 Samsung’s Brand Awareness 5 Samsung’s Brand Meaning 6 Samsung’s Brand Enhancement 7 Conclusion 7 Introduction The Samsung Electronics Company is a multinational company in South Korea which deals with electronics, and its headquarters is situated at Suwon. However, even though the ownership structure of this company is quite complicated, in the year 2012 the Samsung Electronics Company accounted 70% revenue in South Korea (Ledbetter, et al., 2008). Moreover, Samsung Electronics is the second largest IT Company in the entire world after the Apple Company. The company has got numerous assembly plants and also sales networks in more than 80 countries, and the company has created job opportunities for more than 370,000 people in the whole world. Samsung’s marketing communications Marketing communication in Samsung has been considered crucial in improving its brand image in the industry. The Samsung Electronics Company has been transparent and open in its business activities, whereby it has established a goodwill with the media. Therefore, in case the company faces a certain crisis, people can access the reports from the media. However, communication failure of this company has been reflected in the manner in which the company has responded to the Note 7 which threatens to result in huge PR disaster. Even though the Samsung Electronics Company is expected to suffer a loss of around 5.4 billion dollars in profits in the year in the year 2017 (Senior, 2011). The company is capable of incurring the reputational damage cost for marketing its brand products. However, the crisis facing Samsung Company has been a challenge to its success in the industry. The preference for secretiveness in the company has been seen in its unwillingness to respond appropriately to various crises. For instance, the Samsung Electronics Company has not provided clear information concerning what has led to the problem of the Note 7 after their detection. Initially, the problem was associated with the lithium-ion batteries which were defective, but also other components might be at fault. Consequently, this problem has greatly undermined the confidence of the clients about the safety of the Samsung products. Also, the problems that are associated with Note 7 have resulted in long-term uncertainty pertaining the handset operation of the Samsung (Ledbetter, et al., 2008). Moreover, the recall program of the Samsung Electronics Company has provided different refund plans in various markets all over the world, thus undermined the confidence of the clients concerning whether they are being treated fairly. As a result of this inconvenience of this company, various rivals such as the LG and Huawei will grab its market share. The Samsung Electronics Company operates its business activities in the market through different channels. Moreover, the company operates on the concept of channel marketing whereby it has three segments which are; the service dealers, distributors, and the modern retail. The sales and the service dealers usually deal with the key accounts for the company and also get involved in the corporate sales. The segment of the modern retail comprises of large retailers. The Samsung Electronics Company makes use of two major forms of promotion (Parvez, Dehghantanha and Broujerdi, 2011). Moreover, the company promotes its products by attracting customers through advertisement, but it makes use of strong tactics in pushing the products to the clients such as the sales promotions. The company provides discounts as well as offers to the trade partners to motivate them in selling the Samsung products. However, even though the pull strategy may be expensive, it is the most beneficial promotion method. Samsung’s Brand Image Samsung phones have been experiencing an improvement in the reputation of its brand image despite the crisis. The brand value of the Samsung products has consistently succeeded in raising its value by 186%; thus the value of Samsung reaches 14.9 billion dollars. Therefore, this brand value provides support to the strategy of the company for focusing on the usage of the master brand in maximizing the consumer reach and also maximizing the recognition of the Samsung brand products. Moreover, the brand image of the Samsung products is improved by having an integrated as well as the cohesive identity of each product and also every part in the global market. Besides, according to the inter-brand ranking, the Samsung products was ranked in position 19th among the top 100 Global brands (Cho, et al., 2006). Therefore, this ranking of Samsung Electronics Company was clear evidence that the company was more superior in terms of technology and thus lays more emphasis on the creation of the brand product. Furthermore, the company had a strong believe that creation of a fascinating brand was essential in improving the brand`s image. Also, the company has improved its brand value by ensuring the presence of different categories of products in the market. The Samsung phones make use of various strategies in pricing their products. However, the pricing strategies can be categorized according to the purpose of the products. For instance, skimming price is a strategy that is used in marketing the smartphones of this company which is among the best smartphones in the market. Therefore, the Samsung Electronics Company makes use of the skimming price for its products whereby it makes an effort to get high value before the other competitors catch up (Mulliner, Golde and Seifert, 2011). However, immediately after any competitor launches a new similar product, then the company drops the price of its products. Samsung’s Brand Awareness Brand awareness is the extent to which clients are capable of recognizing a certain brand of products. The aspect of brand awareness is one of the major factors in Samsung phones which is usually considered in the behavior of the consumers, brand management and also in advertising management. Moreover, the ability of the consumers to recognize a certain brand of product in the electronic industry plays a significant role in their decision making about purchasing. This is usually the case since a customer cannot buy a certain product before first being aware of the brand category (Cusumano, 2013). However, brand awareness does not only mean that a client should be in a position to recall a particular brand name, but also the customer should be familiar with the features of the brand product. The level of brand awareness in most cases depends on the promotional campaigns that are conducted by a company concerning its products. However, experience in the industry such as the decline of Blackberry and also Nokia have set an example of how successful manufacturers can end up losing their market share, especially in the handset business. The majority of the clients have a persistent belief that the Samsung Electronics Company made a rush introduction of the Note 7, hence created problems in the management of the supply chain as well as in the quality control (Michell, 2010). Samsung’s Brand Meaning Brand in Samsung is the design of an individual product that distinguishes it from the other rival products. Brands are mostly used in various fields which include advertising that is considered important in determining the product demand. Moreover, the meaning of the term brand has been extended to refer to a strategic personality of an individual product such as the values. Besides, branding is usually a communication method which assists in distinguishing a company` products from the other products of the competitors. However, the main aim of the aspect of branding is to create a long lasting appealing in the customers` minds (Choi and Kim, 2015). The major components that make up the brand`s toolbox are; brand`s identity, brand loyalty, branding strategies and also brand communication which include the logos and trademarks. However, since markets are increasingly becoming more dynamic and also fluctuating, the Samsung Company has adopted a marketing technique known as the brand equity which aims at increasing the satisfaction of customers. Samsung’s Brand Enhancement Brand enhancement in Samsung is crucial in improving its competitiveness in the industry. It entails brand management that helps Samsung in analysis how its products are hence affecting how the customers perceive it in the market. However, the creation of a good relationship with the target market is quite necessary for the brand management. Some of the tangible elements for the brand management are; product, price, packaging and also outlook among the others. The intangible elements refer to the experience which a customer has with the brand product as well as their relationship with the brand (Cho, et al., 2006). Moreover, although the social media has changed various tactics for marketing brands, its main goals remain the same which are attracting and also retaining clients. Importantly, this change is creating the right balance between controlling the strategic marketing goals of a company and empowering clients to spread brand information via viral platforms. Moreover, the viral platform creates a room for the customers to spread information concerning a particular brand of product. Conclusion The improvement in the brand reputation has made Samsung the major manufacturer for the electronic components like phones, flash memory, hard drive devices, semiconductors and also lithium-ion batteries among others. The Samsung has become one of the largest manufacturers of mobile phones in the whole world and the in particular smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy. References Choi, W.S. and Kim, D.S., Lg Electronics Inc., 2015. Wireless communication device for mobile phones. U.S. Patent D724,556. Cho, S.J., Choi, E., Bang, W.C., Yang, J., Sohn, J., Kim, D.Y., Lee, Y.B. and Kim, S., 2006, October. Two-stage recognition of raw acceleration signals for 3-D gesture-understanding cell phones. In Tenth international workshop on frontiers in handwriting recognition. Suvisoft. Cusumano, M.A., 2013. The apple-samsung lawsuits. Communications of the ACM, 56(1), pp.28-31. Ledbetter, C.J., Ikeda, J. and Mabry, J.D., Microsoft Corporation, 2008. Ear phones. U.S. Patent D572,703. Michell, T., 2010. Samsung Electronics: And the Struggle For Leadership of the Electronics Industry. John Wiley & Sons. Mulliner, C., Golde, N. and Seifert, J.P., 2011, August. SMS of Death: From Analyzing to Attacking Mobile Phones on a Large Scale. In USENIX Security Symposium. Parvez, S., Dehghantanha, A. and Broujerdi, H.G., 2011, April. Framework of digital forensics for the Samsung Star Series phone. In Electronics Computer Technology (ICECT), 2011 3rd International Conference on (Vol. 2, pp. 264-267). IEEE. Senior, K., 2011. Technology: Smart phones: new clinical tools in oncology?. Lancet Oncology, 12(5), p.429. Read More