Marketing Management at Radiohead - Assignment Example

RADIOHEAD CASE STUDY by Student’s Name Code + Course Name Professor’s Name University Name City, State Date RADIOHEAD CASE STUDY Question 1. Basically, a value chain refers to the process through which a company’s product moves from the initial development up until they are sold or serviced to the people. The process is systematic. Specifically, the online value chain does demonstrate the manner in which a brand can harness the strength of online content marketing so as to build the kind of trust that is necessary to influence buying decisions at the consumer level (Rayport and Sviokla 1995 pp. 75). In the case of Radiohead, their music is created to reach people referred to as “Amateur Influencers”. Amateur influencers are influential people like web pundits and bloggers. They are already trusted personal brands and have got a wide pool of platforms even though they are not necessarily affiliated with any brand in particular (Rayport and Sviokla 1995 pp. 75). The amateur influencers do not necessarily make money from their insight, however they offer a big deal of value to their fans on whichever topic they choose. The Radiohead’s hit album In Rainbow became a subject of many bloggers. It was so popular that most entertainment bloggers would not dare fail to talk about it. Therefore, the fact that this hit was able to trend and identify with prominent bloggers was a determining factor in the group’s online value chain. The bloggers and the web pundits usually have got a valuable audience that is known as prosumers. Prosumers refers to the people who engage the amateur influencers actively by writing online reviews about the talked-about product or service. In this instance, many prosumers actively posted positive reviews in their engagement with the bloggers and web pundits. Particularly, the hit album In Rainbow was on most people’s lips. In the process of online value chain, a brand should be able to reach the consumers once it is actively talked about by the prosumers. The consumers are usually the largest and the most valued audience in this process because they do consume all of the content exactly as distributed to them through the amateur influencers and the prosumers (Rayport and Sviokla 1995 pp. 75). In this manner, their buying decisions are steered. In the Radiohead case, the brand was commonly identified with people whom the public trust, especially the celebrities, and thus this placed the group in a better position to convert consumers in their favor and to their advantage. Consequently, many people were able to download the music online. The band’s music was even listened in as far as the North Korea and Africa. Question 2. The traditional/physical value chain is a model that utilizes the performance of the physical-world activities with the aim of enhancing a certain service or a product. They may incorporate face to face engagement between the producers and the wholesalers as well as the retailers and the consumers. At the end of the process, the goods are supposed to reach the consumers; that is the sole purpose of any value chain. It is important to point out that the activities of this model have evolved over the past several years due to the daily experiences that people gain over the course of their business conduct. Additionally, the motivation to earn higher profits has made professionals to emulate this model, on a basic level, so as to achieve their set goals. On the other hand, the online value chain incorporates the use of computer based systems that are so necessary in the modern world, to aid a company’s product move from the development stage up until it is reaches the consumers and gets sold. The physical world practices are implemented so as to improve the digital world. In this model, the brand is recognized by the virtue influencers who in turn influence the prosumers. From there, the brand reaches the consumers who are the most important audience in any value chain process (Rayport and Sviokla 1995 pp. 75). Question 3. It is arguably correct that Radiohead is one of the most famous musical bands in the world. The year 2007 culminated with the band launching a super famous mucic album, In Rainbow. Consequently, the band opted to use a strategy called “your-own-price”. Basically, in this strategy the buyers were given the option to set their desired price to purchase an album (Turner 2008 pp. 5). On the face value, there seemed as though the strategy generated very minimal income. But there was more than meets the eye because some close calculations would reveal that the strategy maximised on the profits. The online value chain played a crucial role on Radioheads’s pricing strategy. The album was talked about by many bloggers and web pundits. More so, the fact that a customer would be the one to set the price at which to purchase the album made it attract very many customers. The engagement between the bloggers and the prosumers lead to an even greater popularity. Many prosumers posted positive reviews regarding the album. The primary goal of the brand reaching the consumers was achieved because of the widespread news of the music album. A critical look at Radiohead’s pricing strategy reveals that in the future huge profits will be generated because those who got the album without paying a single cent would become huge fans of the Radiohead (Turner 2008 pp. 5). Afterward, they would most probably decide to buy any of their other albums regardless of the price. Also, it is noteworthy that when demand keeps growing and growing in any business one can be sure of generating huge profits. Question 4 It is a good idea to help in the promotion of the creator and copyright holder of the online content. Simply, before one watches, listens to or plays the online media, one is supposed to think about if by doing do so portrays respect to the individual artiste who underwent various challenges before making the content a reality. Therefore, one is require to have empathy when dealing with the online content. However, a big challenges arises due to the fact that various young people might not be empathetic in regard to one who creates media, such as a musician or filmmaker – especially when they feel that the artists are successful – and to a lesser extent in regard to the companies owning the copyright to the created content. Therefore, there is essence of reminding people that the creators of the content have to be supported through the money they acquire from the sales of their content. It is also advisable to be considerate in the sense that even if stuff is freely accessible online, some are not free and there are some cost incurred by the copyright owners while creating the content. Therefore, it is ethical for us to buy the online content since whoever created it requires to be paid from the very stuff (Digital Media Arts 2015). Therefore, it is not ethical to access to “free” online content, such as music. When computer users use the pirated online content, they do not remove the originals from the creators and artists of the content but they simply copy it, thus no theft has occurred, and no loss of money is related to the accessed stuff unless the complainant proves that there was intention of the buyer buying the stuff beforehand.  The online content is easily available thus making the users little time of thinking in regard to whether its access is ethical or has potential repercussions to the users. The users eventually share the content either online or offline. The content ends up being viral and whoever gets access to the shared content online, from friends (through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter) does not have second thought on whether it was shared legally or illegally. Therefore, the social media platform makes users not to be empathetic in regard to those being affected by their actions (Digital Media Arts 2015). It is also evident that the socials codes within the youth’s culture facilitate them to stream, share and download the content without expecting it to be a big deal. Also, there is confusion amongst the users in regard to what content is legal and what is illegal to be accessed online. Since the content is accessible to majority of the people, there is nothing wrong with downloading and sharing it with friends. By sharing the copyrighted content, the artiste also ends up becoming more popular globally. Question 5 As a marketing manager of the Radiohead, I would base the pricing strategy based on the finding s from the "pick your own price" (PYOP) strategy from the sales of the album In Rainbows. Following the PYOP approach in the previous album, it would be evident that majority of customers would prefer prices that are low. This translates to more sales of the album and this would make Radiohead to have more fans worldwide and would be more willing to buy the album at any price in future. Therefore, I would start by applying the same PYOP approach so as to increase the global customer share. Then, after six months, I would come up with three levels of prices that customers would be basing their prices on. The three levels would be Gold (£50 to £99.99), Silver (£10 to £49.9) and Bronze (£0 to £9.9). This pricing system would be an advancement of the initial PYOP approach. Let us take Gold level as an example. Customers would be accessing the prices online. After login, they would click the Gold button and be requested to place the price they intent to pay ranging from £50 to £99.99. Customers from the Gold level will freely download the next album after it has been released. This would encourage some customers to buy the album at this price. Then those in the Bronze level, would be requested, in the website, to try sharing their message (that the new album has been released by the Radiohead) on their social media. The sharing of the message on the clients' social media would serve as a marketing strategy too (Smith 2012). References Digital Media Arts. 2015. Ethics and Intellectual Property. [ONLINE] Available at:http://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/digital-issues/online-ethics/ethics-intellectual-property. [Accessed 11 May 2016]. Rayport, J.F. and Sviokla, J.J., 1995. Exploiting the virtual value chain.Harvard business review, 73(6), p.75. Smith, T. 2012. Pricing strategy: setting price levels, managing price discounts, & establishing price structures. Mason, Oh: South-Western Cengage Learning. Turner, M. 2008, "Radiohead plays price tag", Hollywood Reporter, [Online], vol. 404, , pp. 5. Read More