Marketing
Order Description
(75%) of the assignment to be used as maximum of 12 Powerpoint slides for your presentation.
(25%) Prepare a ONE A4 page Executive Summary.
Page 1 MARKETING COURSE ASSESSMENT 2
Submitting your Assignment
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MARKETING
COURSE ASSESSMENT 2
ONLY TO BE SUBMITTED BY STUDENTS UNABLE TO
ATTEND THE WORKSHOP
Background Information:
Newsflash: ‘Marks & Spencer’s Sustainability Challenge …’
Back in 2007, Marks & Spencer launched its sustainability strategy: Plan A. It set out 100
commitments for the company to achieve in 5 years.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has always been part of the company’s focus on
compliance and philanthropy. Plan A is inherently part of Marks & Spencer’s business
model, adding value across its value chain and is at the heart of the company’s core
purpose. The aims of Plan A are:
– Inspiration: we aim to excite and inspire our customes at every turn
– Intouch: we listen actively and act thoughtfully
– Integrity: we always strive to do the right thing
– Innovation: we are restless in our aim to improve things for the better
(see http://planareport.marksandspencer.com/)
In 2013, Marks & Spencer’s Plan A sustainability strategy resulted in £135 million worth of
savings for the company; a 29% increase on the previous year. In the longer term, Marks &
Spencer are working towards Plan A 2020 – 100 Plan A commitments comprising existing,
revised and new targets for the future to reduce the company’s social and environmental
footprint. However, as Marc Boland, Marks & Spencer’s CEO, notes:
“We know we can’t deliver Plan A 2020 alone, that’s why we’re stepping up our efforts
to ‘lead with others’ by participating in broader coalitions to deliver sector-wide change”.
Therefore as part of Plan A 2020, Marks & Spencer is working with a number of
organisations to support sustainability not just within its stores, but also throughout the whole
supply chain. It also aims to involve and educate its customers and to help them to be part
of this sustainability ‘movement’. Click on the following weblink:
http://www.marksandspencer.com/s/mands-tv and use keyword search: Plan A – a number
of videos will be displayed, demonstrating the various sustainability activities and projects
that Marks & Spencer are involved with, which support its Plan A initiative (for example:
‘Forever Fish’, ‘Energy Efficiency’, ‘The Story of Schwopping’, etc).
This case study considers the issues / challenges facing Marks & Spencer to get its
sustainability message across, not only to its customers, but also through to its suppliers and
employees – and then to use this as a platform to communicate and to better connect with its
customers. It also looks at how Marks & Spencer aims to use the initiative to overcome some
of the negative perceptions that people have surrounding retailers and sustainability.
As a starting, point, please read the article starting on page 5. Also, make use of any
further information that you can source yourself.
Page 3
Useful References:
The following provides some initial readings for this assignment. You will also need to
support your discussion with a range of academic and industry sources.
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K. (2011) Marketing, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, Chapter 6: Market Segmentation and Positioning
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K. (2011) Marketing, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, Chapter 10: An Introduction to Marketing Communications
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K. (2011) Marketing, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, Chapter 11: Marketing Communications: Tools, Media and Planning
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K. (2011) Marketing, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, Chapter 17: Digital Marketing
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K. (2011) Marketing, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, Chapter 19: Marketing, Sustainability and Ethics
Keller, K.L. (2009) ‘Building strong brands in a modern marketing communications
environment’, Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol. 15, Nos. 2–3, April–July, pp.139–
155
Martin, R.L. (2002) ‘The virtue-matrix: calculating the return on corporate social
responsibility’, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 80, No. 3, March, pp. 68-75
McDonald, S. and Oates, C.J. (2006) ‘Sustainability: consumer perceptions and marketing
strategies’, Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp.157-170
McDonald, S., Oates, C., Thyne, M., Alevizou, P. and McMorland, L-A (2009) ‘Comparing
sustainable consumption patterns across product sectors’, International Journal of Consumer
Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2, March, pp. 137-145
Preston, L. (2003) ‘Sustainability at Hewlett-Packard: from theory to practice’, California
Management Review, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 26-37
Signitzer, B. and Prexl, A. (2008) ‘Corporate sustainability communications: aspects of
theory and professionalization’, Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp.1-19
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Your Task:
Acting as consultant, prepare a presentation for Mike Barry, Marks & Spencer’s Director of
Plan A, setting out a marketing communications plan that supports the company’s
sustainability programme and its ‘Plan A’ initiative, with an emphasis on the use of digital
media.
Your response should include, but not be limited to, issues such as:
– In terms of Marks & Spencer’s sustainability programme: How can the market be
best segmented? Who are the target markets that Marks & Spencer should be
focusing on? How is Marks & Spencer positioned against its competitors? What is the
value proposition that needs to be communicated?
– Consider the role of digital media as a communication tool to support this
sustainability programme; how would this fit into the overall integrated marketing
communications (IMC) strategy for the company.
– How can Marks & Spencer maintain the momentum of the ‘Plan A’ initiative to
continue to build brand preference and to retain existing brand loyalty?
(1) (75%) You are to use a maximum of 12 Powerpoint slides for your presentation
response. In addition, you should also include an initial slide, containing your name,
student number, assignment reference (i.e. MAR/StudentNumber/Jan15/2) and
presentation title on it.
Please note, this initial ‘cover page’ slide does not form part of the 12 slides for your
presentation response.
(2) (25%) Prepare a ONE A4 page Executive Summary, detailing the main points of your
response to this task and attach a complete Reference List (see the front page of the
assignment brief for formatting requirements; to best utilise the space on the page, you
can use single line spacing).
Assessment Criteria:
Please note that you will be assessed on the following criteria:
– clarity and quality of the presentation slides
– quality of the case study solution
– use of academic theory / literature
– use of industry sources
Figures in the brackets indicate relative weightings for both parts.
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ARTICLE
Source: The Marketing Week, 24 June 2014
http://www.marketingweek.com/2014/06/24/mss-marketing-director-on-the-challenges-ofcommunicating-
sustainability/
Case Study: “M&S’s marketing director on the challenges
of communicating sustainability”
Marks & Spencer is hoping to boost customer engagement around its sustainability work
with ‘more visible’ marketing that aligns sustainability with the brand’s core products and
values.
Speaking at an event in London today (24 June), M&S’s director of Plan A, Mike Barry, says
the updated sustainability programme, which now runs through to 2020, will be “all about
engagement”, offering customers, staff and suppliers a “simple brand promise” that offers
transparency, operates at a local level and can help lead to a culture change. That promise,
he says, is to “enhance lives every day” through four core values – inspiration, integrity,
innovation and in-touch – that are linked to its core products and reflect the master brand.
At the same event, M&S’s executive director of marketing and business development Patrick
Bousquet-Chavanne claims that 80 per cent of M&S’s 31 million customers are concerned
about the future but only 10 per cent of those are currently engaged in sustainability issues.
The disconnect, he says, is due to a number of factors including a lack of knowledge, the
cost and the fact that ideas such as “curing the world” are too daunting.
He admits that M&S’s sustainability plan has so far been about modernising and evolving its
supply chains, stores and factories but admits this is not “aspirational” and doesn’t engage
with consumers. Instead, M&S must start talking about the “things people personally care
about”, such as its beach cleaning programme, Macmillan coffee mornings and Schwopping
scheme.
Marketing Week spoke to Bousquet-Chavanne at the event on the challenges of
communicating its sustainability proposition and how it is integrating sustainability across the
marketing division.
Marketing Week: What will M&S’s sustainability marketing look like?
Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne: The key word is integral. Plan A should be integral to the way
we communicate, engage and converse with the consumer. It cannot be just a one-time
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marketing effort, that will not sustain. The only way to sustain the effort is to make it part of
everything that we do and finding a way in all our consumer communication channels. We
have credentials now across the vast amount of our products, both in food and in fashion. It
is a question of bringing that to the surface, making sure that our quality is understood and
dialling the message up. You will see messages coming through much more than you have
in the past. But there will not be a one-time campaign, that is not sustainable.
Marketing Week: How will you engage with consumers?
Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne: There will be a variety of aspects that we will make visible to
consumers and ask for them in a very interactive way to participate. I want disciples,
ambassadors, people that want to go on that journey with us and that can positively
contaminate their friends, families and communities to engage. We just don’t have the power
by ourselves to do it all. But we have tremendous resource and conversations that we can
engage and start, that is our whole objective here.
Marketing Week: What channels can we expect to see sustainability marketing in?
Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne: You will see it permeate all the communications channel
where it ought to be present.
Marketing Week: M&S recently made the decision to include sustainability training for all
new marketers. What was the reason behind that decision?
Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne: It is part of the fibre of the company and just doing it
internally now – through engagement, workshops – you realise to what degree our colleagues
are really engaged and passionate about it. We start with a workforce who is willing to learn
more and very hungry for information and then by providing them with this incremental
education they are converting this into the right message wherever they contribute and touch
the consumers. It is very important for the marketers in the company obviously. This is not
something I am pushing into the structure it is something there is an appetite for.
Marketing Week: Will it be necessary to hire marketers specifically to push through the
sustainability agenda?
Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne: What is fascinating is there is a whole new generation of
young and talented men and women who really have it engendered in their DNA. It is pretty
rare, especially when you start talking to millennials, to find that their purpose is not much
larger than the pure economic purpose when they are joining a company. So we are well
positioned for that.