Students are required to have a good understanding of the target customers. In particular, students should have an in-depth understanding of the target consumers’ psychological profile and behaviours

The Assignment

What you need to do:

1. A company.You are to analyse a company of your choice. The chosen company should be a potential company you aspire to work for. Alternatively, it can be a company you are currently working with. You may select an individual or corporate brand if the chosen company has multiple brands. The chosen company must target the consumer market, not the business-to-business market.

• The chosen company is expected to be an Australian company/brand or a global company operating in Australia. If you wish to use a global company operating in your home country, please ensure that the information sources used in this assignment are credible and published in English.
• This is a required section. In an appendix, you are required to reflect on what position you wish to work within the chosen company. As students come from different areas, the aspiration position does not have to be a position in the marketing department.
• Please inform Madhuri and Ves of the company of your choice before proceeding with the assignment (before the end of week 7). In order to do this, submit the selected company name with a brief rationalization (50-100 words) for Madhuri and Ves's approval in Assignment 2 - Company Selection. You need to obtain the approval before 16th September 2024.
• Secondary research – You need to gather information about the selected company and its main competitors. Credible information sources must be used. They include news articles, periodicals from ABI/Inform, industry reports (e.g., IBIS World Report, Euromonitor International Reports, Gartner and GWI), and credible websites (e.g., Australian Bureau of Statistics, United Nations, and the company websites).

2. Target market: Identify potential target consumers, their purchase-related behaviour

Students are required to have a good understanding of the target customers. In particular, students should have an in-depth understanding of the target consumers’ psychological profile and behaviours. 

Identify your target customers. Analyse their purchase-related behaviours. You must apply three (3) consumer behaviour concepts from the list below.

You should conduct the literature review of the three selected consumer behaviour concepts and gauge how potential target consumers may display their thoughts, feelings and/or behaviours consistent with the concepts selected.

• Needs: what types of needs may the target consumers want to address when consuming the selected product/services?
• Motivation: what types of motivations may the target consumers want to address when consuming the selected product/services?
• Personality: what types of personalities/self-concepts may the target consumers have?
• Reference groups: who are the main reference groups that influence the purchase-related behaviours of the potential target consumers? How do the reference groups influence the target consumers' thoughts, feelings and behaviours?
• Subculture: is there any particular subculture the target consumers may identify with? How does a particular subculture influence their thoughts and behaviours towards the selected product/services?

4. Positioning through a perceptual map

Draw a perceptual map.

• You can analyse its current brand positioning as compared to its main competitors (point-of-parity and point-of-difference).
• Create a multi-attribute positioning map (with 3 axes) to understand better what is important to customers.
• Provide evidence to support your perceptual map (if possible)

Note: You must correctly demonstrate your understanding of the positioning concept.

5. Two key recommendations concerning brand management and product/service management:

• Briefly analyse the company’s (brand) current branding and product/service marketing strategies.
• Make two recommendations to improve the abovementioned strategies based on specific marketing theories and concepts and provide evidence that the recommended strategies may work.
• Follow the suggested steps in making effective recommendations.
• Examples of recommendations can be, but not limited to:
  • If repositioning is suggested, add a SECONDperceptual map for the new position of the brand. Then, you can suggest a branding strategy for the chosen brand to implement in order to move to the new position.
  • Developing strong customer-brand relationships/brand equity and brand strength
  • Product/service differentiation/innovation
  • Closing services gaps to reduce or prevent service failure or improve service quality dimensions.

Other important Notes:

The key to successfully completing each section is to integrate theory from the unit to structure your research and analysis (insight). Integration means using the marketing theory, concepts and frameworks to structure your research into information that is comprehendible by a practising marketer. It is not cut and paste of theory, but rather the use of theory to frame your insight logic.

The application/integration of the key marketing concepts – Crucial!

Recommended report structure of the report

• Executive summary (excluded from the word count)
• Table of contents (excluded from the word count)
• Introduction
  • Brieflyintroduce the chosen company (brand)
• Discuss the psychological, psychographic and purchase-related behaviour of the target consumers using three chosen consumer behaviour concepts.
• A perceptual map with some explanations
  • Create ONEmulti-attribute perceptual map, taking into consideration the point of difference and point of parity among the key brands.
  • Provide evidence to support your perceptual map (if possible)
• Two key recommendations concerning marketing strategies on brand management and P-product and 3 extra Ps of services marketing.
  • Discuss and analyse briefly the current marketing strategies concerning brand management and product/service strategy.
  • Provide two recommendations based on the core marketing theories/concepts with evidence.
  • Use the suggested steps in making effective recommendations.
• Appendix: A reflection on career aspiration in a chosen company (200-300 words – include in the word count)
• References
  • A minimum of 5 academic journal articles is required (HD > 8 academic journal articles)
  • Note: the names of the key academic journals in marketing are provided in the unit outline. You need to use the " Peer-reviewed " filter in the library search engine to access the academic journal articles.
  • Credible information sources consist of news articles, government reports, industry reports, and information taken from credible websites (e.g., government and the focal company).
  • The American Psychological Association (APA) must be used correctly to compile the reference list and in-text references.