Positioning Strategy for Anki Drive - Case Study Example

The Marketing Plan London School of business & Finance Business & Finance Course Tutors: Tracy Mpofu Name: Sohaib Al-Salih Student number: M1011737 Date:02/05/2014 1.0 Introduction Anki Company is a company that deals with innovation of robotic game software. It is new in the market and its leaders are innovative, open-minded people. It is therefore open to new ideas. This paper discusses the marketing strategies that the Anki Company could use to develop into a successful robotic games software company. 2.0 Marketing Analysis and Strategy 2.1.1. PESTEL analysis of Anki Drive The PESTEL analysis is a system that basically expresses the factors that have great impact on the operations of a firm, the macro-environmental factors that a firm like Anki cannot control. The aspects of the PESTEL analysis look into the political, environmental, social, technological, as well as the legal factors. With connection to the political, social, technological, and legal conditions in the United Kingdom, this study looks into how these factors would affect the launch and the operations of Anki Drive. The political attitude and approaches in the United Kingdom has been one of the stable and business supportive in the world. The advent of video games has arrived when most of the political movements and foundations have accepted the importance of technology to almost all sectors of the economy. Thus, the political facts of the United Kingdom present a stable economy and open-minded policy makers that are ready to accommodate technological advancements. As argued by Milligan (2012), the political dimension of a target country dictates how the business would fair on. In this case, therefore, the intended launch of the Anki Drive in the United Kingdom would be a strategic business move for the company because the political system in place is stable, supportive, and technologically oriented. As argued above, a political environment that conforms to the technological challenges and advancements is relevant for a technological firm like Anki. In this case, therefore, the firm itself must also be ready to adapt to the technological principles and advancements in the targeted markets in the United Kingdom. In the today’s advanced business world, consumers have become increasingly demanding considering that they not only want high quality products but also demand (expect) high quality customer services. In order to stay on course, delivering high quality products to the customers is an ongoing concern to managers. Consolidating their management skills and strategies to satisfy their customers’ needs, certain gaps exist occurs in the organization in the process of providing quality services and to make economic profits (Chary, 2009). The United Kingdom presents a technologically enabled market that is ready to accept a quality technical product from Anki. Thus, it is also a positive marketing move for the company. The main mission of Anki, Inc. is to build on decades of scientific research and make artificial intelligence accessible to everyone. By bringing into the lives of the United Kingdom’s consumers customed robotics, the company will take advantage of a society that embraces the kind of technical products that can be offered. The social expectations of the modern products are high, and as Anki launch the Anki Drive in the UK, the social expectations remains important factor to the management of the firm. Evidently, the customer values and preferences in the United Kingdom trends towards products that are technically of high quality, and the advent of the Anki Drive provides the quality speedy brand new interactive battle racing game that is socially expected to captured the attention of UK customers. 2.1.2. SWOT Analysis on the Capability of Anki Company The SWOT analysis identifies the strength, the weaknesses, opportunities, and the threats that may face a company like Anki in the United Kingdom. On an international basis, it is best to perform the analysis on a country-by-country basis because factors can differ greatly between countries (or even regions). The launch of Anki Drive in the United Kingdom would prove the strength of the firm considering the advanced application of the introduced product. Rather than its capital base, the innovative production and nature of the firm is the strength of the firm. Management enabled by technological prowess is highly competitive in a market manifested by technological firm and a society that embrace technological advancements. According to Pahl & Richter (2007), one of the main fears of any firm that expects to advance into a new market segment is about reception of the product. As a new firm that was previously founded in 2010 the company’s market share is still low in the global market. As an upcoming technological firm, Anki, Inc. faces the same market that established firms have occupied and captured. This situation makes a firm likes Anki to be weakened strategically. In the United Kingdom, the technical industry is well versed with technological advancements and the Anki Drive would provide that, but the product is new and would face many marketing challenges. There are opportunities available in the market for Anki. Many people in the UK society have a passion for technology and they like trying out new things. The game consequently stands a chance of being a success. At the launch of the Anki Drive, the huge expectation of the product will provide an opportunity for the management and marketing team to boost this product’s awareness in the United Kingdom. More importantly, one of the main notions about Anki Drive is that the Anki Drive app will be actually be compatible with iPhones and other communications gadgets. The company has an opportunity to link the expectation with quality product and thus capture the UK market. The company’s major threat is the many existing competitors. These customers are familiar with the competitors thereby making competing with them a big challenge (Pahl & Richter, 2007). 2.2 Marketing Objectives and Strategies to use in Anki The company’s marketing objectives is to dominate the market of robotic games software. The best marketing model for the company is the marketing mix (Kaynak, 2003). The model would involve identifying the target market and their needs. The company would then confirm whether the product effectively meets the needs of the target market (Belz, & Peattle, 2012). It would also identify a pricing strategy, which would ensure that the company was competitive while still making profits. This strategy would further involve the company identifying the methods in which they would distribute and avail the software to the target market (Eechambadi, 2005). Promotional efforts that began as soon as the product would be launched in the UK injected the product into the UK market spectrum. As a competitive strategy, this would give the firm an opportunity to strategically market its brands. 2.3 Segmentation Criteria of the Anki Drive Product The basic criterion of segmenting a product market is founded on the principle of mass marketing that makes sales pitch to all potential customers. The Anki Drive product breaks customers into categories based on income, age, lifestyle, as well as locations among other related factors. Segmenting the market for Anki Drive at the launch of the Anki drive product would give the company an opportunity to spread the product niches to a vast portion of United Kingdom. As much as marketing strategies should focus on repeated echoing of the product, tailor making the products to suit the interest, tastes, and preferences of every customer segment is very critical for a firm like Anki, Inc. (Ellson, 2004). 2.4 Targeting strategy for Anki Drive in the UK The Anki Drive is expected to challenge the modern intelligence in videogames by bringing something close to reality. The aspect of segmentation in marketing means that not all will consume the technological enhancement with utmost appreciation. Numerous challenges are expected to face the marketability of the Anki Drive. However, at the launch of the Anki Drive in the United Kingdom, the marketing management of the firm must carry on numerous campaign targeting; especially the young people and men who are actually become the actual and potential customers. As argued by Kendrick (2006), promotional efforts of a product like Anki Drive, during and after the launch, should ensure designed information flow that runs to specific target group like children and relevant segmented groups. The grounding level of marketing efforts is determined by the strategic target that the campaign aims to achieve. Thus, the Anki Drive UK launch should be accompanied with marketing strategic drive for the product. 2.5 How Buyer Behavior Affects the Marketing Activities in Anki Drive The analysis of the buyer behavior is very important for marketers. Rather than just segmenting the market, the most important end reason for such segmentation is to note the buyers’ behaviors in order to tailor products to suit their tastes and preferences. One of the major threats of Anki’s launch of the Anki Drive in the United Kingdom is the fear of advancing into a market that is new and with a new product brand. However, a thorough analysis of the buyer behavior is very mandatory and precedes the product launch. As argued by Fifield (2012), a buyer’s decisions and behavior starts from perception of the product itself. The product must first satisfy the psychological curiosity before meeting the real need of satisfaction. In this case, therefore, the first step of the buyer behavior process is the need recognition since if there is no need, thus no purchase. The next step in this process would be information search about the product, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior (Tvede & Ohnemus, 2001). Basing the ideology of marketers into practice, the Anki Drive launch in the United Kingdom should capture the registered concept about the product to the many customers who will be witnessing the launch. The buyer’s social life affects the marketing strategies used by the company (Fifield, 2012). This is because there are some methods that would be difficult to reach some target markets for example if a person is mostly in the office working, it would be difficult for them to watch TV thereby making TV adverts an invalid way to reach out to them. In cases where the customers have a high preference for discounts, the best way for the company to market its product would be by offering discounts for the products (Milligan, 2012). 2.6 Positioning Strategy for Anki Drive This would involve the company availing the software to the already segmented groups thereby ensuring that everyone that the company targets easily accesses the software thereby maximizing on the profits gained. It would also ensure that the company stands the chance of dominating the market (Mishra, 2009). As argued above and as stated by Smith & Taylor (2004), positioning is the ability to actually know whether a product is in relation to its environment. It is pretty true that before deciding to launch the product in the United Kingdom, the Anki, Inc. had a concrete marketing research in the expected environment. More than that, the company first mentioned the Anki Drive during the 2013 Apple Worldwide Developers in the United States. This game-play stood out to be strategic and marketing support to the coming the launch of the same product. The strategy also became more immersive and directive over time, giving the Anki Drive an opportunity to speedily advance into the United Kingdom market within the economic timeframe value of the product. 3.0 The Marketing Program and Implementation 3.1 Importance of a Balanced Marketing Mix in Creating Competitive Advantage A well-balanced marketing mix would help ensure that the company effectively meets the needs of the target market (Peterson, 2007). This would ensure that the customers prefer Anki’s products to those of their competitor’s especially if the customers’ products do not meet their needs. A well-balanced marketing mix would also ensure that the software the company is marketing is readily available to the target market. It would help identify the means to distribute the game to the market thereby making it an option to choose from for the customers (Paley, 2005). It would also help the company to come up with the competitive prices for the software. This is because it would identify a pricing strategy based on the competitors’ prices and the cost incurred while making the software (O'kane, 2011). The marketing mix would also ensure that the company identifies the best and most appropriate methods of promoting the game. It would involve identifying the available promotional strategies and choosing the most appropriate options from those strategies. This would therefore ensure that the company is competitive in the market (Ranchhod, 2004). 3.2 The Main Features of an Effective Distribution Strategy for the Anki Drive Product In the modern-day marketing, there is much involved more than just making a product be known publicly. Before the product captured the market as expected, communicating the product to the target audience is the first step, then series of actions such as raising brand awareness, and bringing the product to the customer in the easiest way (availing the product), and finally maintaining the availability of the product (Wilson & Gilligan, 2005). Marketing channels, or rather distributive channels are the activities involved in the transfer of the ownership of goods from a point of production to points of consumption. According to Wilson & Gilligan (2005), marketing involves both online and offline distributive strategies. In this case, online distribution strategies involves the unconventional distribution of products using the electronic utilities such as social networks, social bookmarks, social media, blogs, widgets and gadgets, browser extensions, and search engines which are used in bringing the products or services to the right people and to reach the target audience (Belz & Peattie, 2012). One the other hand offline distributive strategies involve the use of agents, call centers, etc, that have become very inefficient in the modern society and in the current weak economic situations. The offline distributive channels are very slow, and have higher distribution and operational costs. Thus, the Anki Drive launch in the United Kingdom should be preceded by an active distributive channel strategy, especially online strategies in order to remain relevant in that market. An effective distribution strategy would clearly identify the means of distribution of the game to the market (Solomon, 2003). This would help avoid confusion in the implementation process of the marketing plan. It should also ensure that the product is easily available to the target market. This would help ensure that the customers can easily get the game thereby making it competitive. An effective distribution strategy would also involve the company identifying the means of distribution used by other companies thus helping sharpen its competitive edge (Ranchhod, 2004). This is because the customers would have the opportunity to choose Anki Drive over the competitors’ products. 3.3 Pricing Strategy for Anki Drive The Anki Company could price the software based on a number of factors. These factors include the cost incurred in developing the software (Kaynak, 2003). This would help ensure that the company does not make any losses as the selling price covers the production cost as well as give the company profits. The company could also consider the quality of the game. It should ensure that the price given matches the quality of the software in order to ensure that is easy to convince the customers that the prices are reasonable. It could further consider the prices of the competitors’ software (Milligan, 2012). This would help guide it price the software reasonably and competitively. The prices should not be very high as compared to those of the competitors. They could be slightly higher than the competitors’ or equal or slightly lower than the competitors’ prices. This would help convince the customers to but the Anki Drive and thereby dominate the market (Paley, 2005). 3.4 Effective Promotional Campaign for Anki Drive In order to ensure that the promotional activities that the company involves itself are successful, it should use venues that the target market could easily come across (Wood, 2005). This would ensure that the target market gets to hear the promotional message and thereby know about the existence of the software. The company should also ensure that the promotion strategies it involves itself in, highlights the way that the game will meet all the target market needs. This would help convince the potential customers that the software is right for them and thus buy it (Kaynak, 2003). The promotional activities should also involve giving a detailed description of how the game works and as well highlight the advantages of the software over those of the competitors. This would help convince the customers that the Anki Drive is much better than the games supplied by other companies and thereby dominate the market. 3.5 An Advertising Campaign that will Spread Awareness of Anki Drive The Anki Company could use the ‘through the line’ advertising strategy. This involves combining both the below the line and above the line advertising. This would ensure that the company reaches its targeted market audience and spread awareness of the existence of the software. This would ensure that the company gets to interact with the customers as well as reach out to customers that they would not get into contact with easily (Tvede & Ohnemus, 2001). This method is cost effective as it is affordable to the company. The benefits of the method also match the cost incurred by using this method. 3.6 A Detailed Plan for the Proposed Advertising Campaign The ‘through the line’ advertising strategy proposed would involve the company advertising through the media for example television adverts. This would help ensure that the information reaches a large group of the targeted market (Smith & Taylor, 2004). Though it would reach an untargeted group, it would bring no harm to the company. As argued above, the online distributive channels improve the accessibility of the Anki Drive to many customers in the United Kingdom. More than that, it would less costly and would also embrace the modern technological advancements. Thus, the company should use more of online distribution channels to market its products to the UK market after the launch (Belz, & Peattie, 2012). The company would also use the social media to advertise the software. It would create a profile in the different social sites and invite people to follow it. In the created platform, the company could inform the followers on the existence of the game as well as how it works. It would also inform them on where to find the product. The company could also have some people supplying fliers to the target market (Wong, Radel & Ramsaran-Fowdar, 2011). This would help the company have direct contact with the customers and thereby stand a chance of knowing whether the software meets their needs. The use of the three methods would help ensure that the customer would develop confidence with the software due to the consistency of the information given. 3.7 The Elements of the Extended Marketing Mix Facts about extended marketing mix are a combination of divergent variables that affect the buyer purchase-decision of a product. These mixes are the strategies that expand the number of controllable variables in marketing perspectives. Traditionally, it is known about the 4 P’s of the marketing mix. However, an extended marketing mix introduces the people, the process, and the physical evidence of a product (Ranchhod, 2004). Rather than just considering the famous four marketing mix, the launch of the Anki Drive in the United Kingdom should focus its full strength on the extended marketing mix that sufficiently utilizes the people, a effective process, and an automated physical evidences of the Anki Drive. The company could ensure that software effectively meets the expectations and needs of the people in target market. This would ensure that they are satisfied and that they buy the product. Satisfaction of the customers would ensure that they inform other people about the game thereby enlarging the market share of the company. It could incorporate physical evidence as part of its extended marketing mix. This would involve creating a website for the company and a logo that can be associated with the Anki Drive Robotic game. The company could also consider the marketing process and ensure that throughout the process there was a good relationship between it and the customers. This would ensure that the company creates a good impression to the customers. 3.8 Executive Summary of the Plan The main marketing objective of the proposed marketing plan is to create awareness of the existence of the robotic game and later dominate the market. The plan also seeks to establish a good relationship between the company and the customers (Katz & Mccormick, 2000). The strategy proposed involves identifying the needs of the target market and ensuring that the software meets the needs of the target market. Basically, the core instinct of this plan is to capture the UK market with the boom that the Anki Drive would have among the potential customers in the globe. This plan is not to only focus on the good relationship between the company and customers, but to take advantage of the UK society that embraces technological advancements. In this case, therefore, online marketing strategies and communicating the product to the customers are to be adopted. More than that, as argued by Ranchhod (2004), emphasis is to be laid on tailor-making the product to suit the preferences of all segmented market domain. This would increase the product brand image and thus more relevancy of the Anki Drive in the UK market. It also involves setting up a pricing strategy that is competitive by comparing the prices of the competitor, considering the development cost and the opinion of the customers. The strategy also involves ensuring that the software is availed to the customers to ensure that they can easily get it for example software stores and app stores (Wilson, & Gilligan, 2005). It also incorporates promotional strategies to ensure that the company informs the customers about the software. 4.0 Different Contexts and Opportunities 4.1 New Product Concept The company could use the diversification strategy, which involves the company developing a new product and marketing it to a new market segment that it has not yet explored. This would be dependent on the finances that the company has and its innovative nature (Katz & Mccormick, 2000). The concept of a new product is an innovative strategy considering the modern technological advancement and also considering how the launch of the Anki Drive in the UK would set a high standard for the next product to be introduced. The new product analysis take a five step process that involves the core benefits as expected from the product. Focusing on the influence that the Anki Drive product would have in the UK after the launch, the new product would benefit the main product and also the company as well. Supportive applications that would be easy to launch even in the mobile gadgets would make the company more profitable. As the basic product remains to be the Anki Drive, the company should focus into producing applications that enhance the videogames to cut all the dimensions of customer preferences. The potential product that would remain to be augmented with the Anki Drive would be these enhancements that would not only embrace technology, but also increase the marketability of Anki Drive. 4.2 Differences in Marketing ‘Anki Drive’ to Businesses Rather than Individual Consumers While marketing the software to potential distributors, the company uses ‘below the line’ advertising strategy in order to ensure that the message is personalized and more convincing to the distributors (Grewal, & Levy, 2010). It also involves convincing the distributors that the customers will like and buy the software. The pricing strategy employed while advertising to the distributors, considers the price at which the software will reach the customer. Marketing to consumers on the other hand involves convincing the consumer to like the software by outlining its benefits to him or her. The advertising strategy used is the ‘through the line’ strategy therefore the company personalizes some messages to suit the consumer while others are general to suit everyone (Terpstra & Russow, 2000). The price given in this marketing strategy is the prices in which the customer will get the software at so the company does not have to consider the price in two dimensions. 4.3 How and Why International Marketing is different from domestic marketing in the UK Most markets and industries in the world are currently dynamic and thus needs dynamic strategies in order to achieve the set goals and objectives of a firm. In the United Kingdom, the marketing strategies that are easily adopted is the international strategy and also in the same dimensions as the domestic strategies considering the existence of both the local and multinational corporations present in the UK (Goi, 2009). In what may seem to challenge many firms, the domestic marketing would rather yield more benefits within the UK than international strategies because of the brand market segmentations factors. The social-economic ties and political environment make this market different from other markets and thus more of their domestic marketing strategies should be adopted to suit this market. The international marketing uses ‘above the line’ advertising strategies. This involves using platforms that are international for example social media. The company generalizes message in the adverts for the international market (Fifield, 2007). The strategies also involve consideration of the diverse cultures. The international marketing strategy standardizes the message relayed to ensure that everyone relates to it. The domestic marketing on the other hand does not consider the cultural differences of the target market so it gives a more personalized message and it uses the ‘through the line’ advertising strategy (Fifield, 2012). 4.4 Expansion with Market Leaders like Google, FaceBook, or other Social Media Companies Anki Company can expand its target market by using the social media. This would help ensure that the target market is international since people globally involve themselves with these social sites. It would be easy to relay their messages to the global market. This would lead to an increase in the size of the target market and thus an increase in profits (Etzel, Walker & Stanton, 2007). The first strategic move for Anki Drive product and thus to Anki, was when it was mention the 2013 Apple Worldwide Developers in the United States. Such was the strategy that would allow the company to expand its niches in the globe. The modern world is mainly controlled by technological firms and the market leaders in the industries such as Google, facebook and other social media firms are very critical in the expanding the Anki’s image abroad. 5.0 Critical Analysis 5.1 Critically Evaluate the Marketing Plan The implementation of the marketing mix in the Anki Company would work out well on helping the company emerge among the top suppliers of robotic game software. This is because it considers all aspects of marketing the software and puts the customer into consideration. The method however is not immune to failure, a weakness that is associated with all marketing strategies (Goi, 2009). According to Grewal & Levy (2010) the marketing plan is a cycle that begins and ends with evaluation. The final stage in the marketing plan is to measure the outcomes of the marketing activities against the original objectives and targets. Eechambadi (2005) further states that continuous evaluation helps the marketing team to focus on modifying or introducing new activities to achieve objectives. In this case, therefore, based on the reports about a product launch in the UK, a product like Nevea, it was realized that the key market indicators included market share, overall sales, image ratings, and product innovation. Such information would be retrieved through extensive market research. Anki Drive Launch in the UK would be a success in the future of the product’s life if its overall ratings, market share, and innovation among other technical applications are highly rated than others. Therefore, efforts must be emphasized in the marketing links to the UK market domain. References BELZ, F.-M., & PEATTIE, K. (2012). Sustainability marketing: a global perspective. Hoboken, N.J., Wiley. Goi, C. L. (2009). A Review of Marketing Mix: 4Ps or More? International Journal of Marketing Studies (1)1, 2-15 EECHAMBADI, N. (2005). 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