Task 1- Brand focus

McDonald’s® is the global’s top fast food restaurant chain with more than 260 restaurants in Malaysia. It has more than 12,000 Malaysian employees in their workforce (McDonald’s Malaysia 2018).

According to The Economic Times (2018), Product Life Cycle can be explained as the cycle through which every product experience from introduction to withdrawal or eventual demise. Product Life Cycle consists of four stages which are the introduction, growth, maturity and decline stages. Thus, a company will need to adopt to various marketing strategies to maximise their profit and market share when its product is at each life cycle stage (Chen 2017).

McDonald’s® started their operation in year 1955 which is founded by Ray Kroc (McDonald’s 2018). It was at its introduction stage as McDonald’s just opened its first restaurant. In other words, Chen (2017) mentioned that introduction stage is also known as development stage whereby a new product has just been introduced and exposed into a market. Moving on to the growth stage, it can be seen when McDonald’s® turned into the largest restaurant organisation globally with more than 33,000 McDonald’s® restaurants in 119 countries (McDonald’s 2018). At maturity stage, statistics obtained from Statista (2019) shows that McDonald’s revenue is declining from year 2014 till 2018. According to Chen (2017), decline stage is where the introduction of new products to replace the old products that are losing their competitiveness as they are being replaced. McDonald’s® is currently not at this stage as it is not replaced by other fast food chains.

There are 5 levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which are physiological, security, social, esteem and self-actualization needs. The basic level of needs is physiological needs. To illustrate, McDonald’s® have fulfilled this need as they serve food and beverages to customers along with their mission which is “to be our customer’s favourite place and way to eat” (McDonald’s 2018). Next, the second level is safety-security needs. Taormina and Gao (2013) suggests that the types of warnings that could gain the safety–security response and the circumstances that fulfil these needs is essential to be recognised. For example, customer’s information collected when using their app includes personal details, housing address and card details are secured as private and confidential. This can be seen when McDonald’s® stated that they will treat personal details as private and confidential and will not expose the information to anyone outside of the McDonald’s Family. Therefore, safety-security needs are satisfied. For social needs, it is defined as the need of human beings to have interpersonal bonds and to feel a sense of belonging with other people is considered important to the homo sapiens (Taormina and Gao 2013). McDonald’s® strives to make each customer to feel good when they visit their restaurants (McDonald’s 2018). Moving on to esteem needs, it is the respect that one gains from own self and others. McDonald’s® has earned its respect when it is awarded the Halal CSR Excellence Award at the World Halal Conference 2019 in April (McDonald’s 2018). The highest level of need is self-actualization. According to McDonald’s (2018), they have 36,000 restaurants worldwide, making it to be everywhere and the top of fast food’s food chain.

Gannon, Taheri and Olya (2019) describes that experiential consumption is often social, supported by the interactions among consumers. For example, McDonald’s are using licensing in their Happy Meal toys (McDonald’s 2018). By having different toys from time to time, customers will increase their purchase due to experiential consumption. To illustrate, a customer may tell another customer on the recent Happy Meal toy that attracts attention and interest. As a result, this action motivates others to consume or purchase the product. According to Nardini, Lutz and LeBoeuf (2019), companies may place more focus on their experiential offerings to intensify their customers’ experiences. Therefore, experiential consumption is delivered.

 

Task 2- CB concept focus

Issue

Nivea® was involved in a serious issue as their advertisement was offensive and inappropriate. In an article by Wang (2017), Nivea has deleted their deodorant ad that has the tagline “White Is Purity”. It was done after some people objected that the slogan is considered as racist. Besides, others took over Nivea’s online campaign with comments about white supremacy.

Due to this issue caused by racist ads, it has lead to boycott of customers. By applying the Product Life Cycle theory, Nivea was at its decline stage where customers do not buy and use their products. It can be concluded that their racist ads drove sales down not only in that particular year, but also in the following years.

Viral Marketing

Dove’s Beauty Sketchers campaign

According to Bhattacharyaa, Gaurav and Ghoshc (2019), viral marketing can be defined as current marketing strategy that is being used to communicate with customers, which has the capability to reach a vast audience in a very efficient manner. Besides, Internet word-of-mouth marketing is the synonym for viral marketing (Bhattacharyaa, Gaurav & Ghoshc 2019). This is because it stimulates people in information-sharing. This can be done by sharing information with their friends through email or other social media, and uses available social networks as claimed by Bhattacharyaa, Gaurav and Ghoshc (2019). The brand that has viral marketing is Dove. Within 12 days of its release, Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches video has more than 50 million people views (Dove 2019). Based on Dove’s (2019) official website, Real Beauty Sketches has been viewed almost 180 million times to date. The theory that best suit Dove’s video under Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is self-actualization. Based on Taormina and Gao’s (2013) article, self-actualization is people’s desire for self-fulfilment, in other words, the likelihood for them to actualize in what they can possibly are. Dove (2019) mentioned that the aim of the film is to inspire women who feel anxious about their looks to reconsider their view of their own beauty and always keep in mind that they are more beautiful than they think.

 

PEST

According to Schiffman and Wisenblit (2015), political, economic, social and technological are the four criteria included in the PEST analysis Among the four factors, the factor that can be related to McDonald’s is social. To elaborate, demographic for McDonald’s can be seen when it is targeted to children. This is due to the reason that adults are perceived as more health conscious and it is a less desirable option for them.

 

Valencia, Cardenas and Acevedo (2019) mentioned that PEST analysis is a tool that aids in improving the decision-making process on a problem. McDonalds has many outlets in different countries (McDonald’s 2018). Every country has its own culture and norms and McDonalds ensures that the cultural and religious barriers are in serious consideration while formulating the food menus at their outlets, depending on the location. For example, McDonald’s has introduced special vegetarian meals to suit that market.

 

Reference List

Bhattacharya, S, Gaurav, K and Ghosh, S 2019, ‘Viral marketing on social networks: An epidemiological perspective’, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, vol. 525, pp. 478-490, DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2019.03.008, accessed 4 May 2019, <https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271529/1-s2.0-S0378437119X00072/1-s2.0-S0378437119302274/main.pdf?x-amz-security-token=AgoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEFoaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIF%2BaH%2BCvDihKmuxx7DQ6s2ymJRULt2Wr4I6nmdADUwqkAiEAwip2hq36gJgT4o1ujIsZouMdq5nsQ8kdDuEv9c9wbRkq2gMIUxACGgwwNTkwMDM1NDY4NjUiDCVyKj4r32cwMMX2TCq3AzDlxWsw1niXLuyQzNWkEgoP%2BYJaFblQaBPLqHtMu8vCOrOV7yYfhj2y6L493VQfJRzmxDXs%2BOZI7Cc5guOrkef3jihnj6DzomoioVOTaP90gEzvHMeMGTJeM%2Bd2TU%2BAXZz1HMNS2ED0ZF9RuzQEktbfDn6DOGVjbzKjqm9bF56cx78CshEii3U7ehXhZgIC2ppE0iXV%2FgH6grciTi4F1sLHvvXt0lI1ntrcENl%2Fs1bMvX8gEpx2Q2gJE4Slli48%2FoeDLXrqzO9RkKcHJVmvdD6jAGC2%2FqfYjMW0Mw7HhS5hZu%2FXg%2FOX6lIF3MBO6piVOtrVEtwu5tOztnlljMyIhDUy5Ial2f8ijloHENrwFK61yDj4Zlv%2Br3WO%2BTgLd%2BXGZc9Ub7C4z0WF3aI6bnyHbgUnYf7QBRntCcBM3oQCYG%2FcvrlH66%2FDu6lrjulwFL7pxI40IqiK1pap%2BWFGgZpjcu7%2F8yJxi6hhLpIMbTwlGvfNgYFCMZZW2h0E13kn%2FZr6i3ys4SU7kzfmO4T%2BOFMo%2Bhe%2B8R6UCNh82NvV8opu4RqeI9%2BGh2G%2F3VLKYO6lGOAfZ%2Fa5W3lwMYEwsY3O5gU6tAFgFn8%2FDXxYI2oBvEuLlk3oWlyPoM%2B6OpMZnAzwzLoFz0CdKpPqniyI69AEjDmK1%2FEshn6lsy2rXEqaPLRd062tWmyM%2FHOYgQY0P%2BjTwy5Hecj8sa79G8lDG1rSZrMzvQwIgfvgBpd3GMKKdlBytjR3qqbRe3XLzF%2F7HxvW25beDr2mlYxqfDML%2F7AHTX2GkinJVctHvR69i7psFEPUY35bRARnVRh9a3Cbk%2BTQSUegBUigGZc%3D&AWSAccessKeyId=ASIAQ3PHCVTYSKCME6CS&Expires=1557369111&Signature=MnHjKHeCytFWdrJQb4DDYqCJit0%3D&hash=bdd731fb876c8801d80324b172d65344444d40da1632ab171861c6737472c069&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=S0378437119302274&tid=spdf-84985f35-cfc2-4169-807a-4ef39c039811&sid=0b8590f02ff9b049855b1065c28b1e441218gxrqa&type=client

Chen, BC 2017, ‘Study on establishment of product life cycle model of cultural creative product industrialization’, 2017 International Conference on Applied System Innovation (ICASI), ISBN: 1-5090-4898-7, 978-1-5090-4898-4, pp.1259-1262, DOI: 10.1109/ICASI.2017.7988125, accessed 6 May 2019, <http://ey9ff7jb6l.search.serialssolutions.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au//?sid=Elsevier:Scopus&genre=proceeding&issn=&volume=&issue=&spage=1259&epage=1262&pages=1259-1262&artnum=7988125&date=2017&title=Proceedings+of+the+2017+IEEE+International+Conference+on+Applied+System+Innovation%3a+Applied+System+Innovation+for+Modern+Technology%2c+ICASI+2017&atitle=Study+on+establishment+of+product+life+cycle+model+of+cultural+creative+product+industrialization&aufirst=B.-C.&auinit=B.-C.&auinit1=B&aulast=Chen&id=doi:10.1109%2fICASI.2017.7988125>

Dove 2019, Dove Real Beauty Sketches, accessed 2 May 2019, <https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaigns/real-beauty-sketches.html>

Gannon, M, Taheri, B and Olya, H 2019, ‘Festival quality, self-connection, and bragging’, Annals of Tourism Research, vol. 76, pp.236-252, DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2019.04.014, accessed 3 May 2019, <http://ey9ff7jb6l.search.serialssolutions.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au//?sid=Elsevier:Scopus&genre=article&issn=01607383&volume=76&issue=&spage=239&epage=252&pages=239-252&artnum=&date=2019&title=Annals+of+Tourism+Research&atitle=Festival+quality%2c+self-connection%2c+and+bragging&aufirst=M.&auinit=M.&auinit1=M&aulast=Gannon&id=doi:10.1016%2fj.annals.2019.04.014>

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Nardini, G, Lutz, RJ, LeBoeuf, RA 2019, ‘How and when taking pictures undermines the enjoyment of experiences’, Psychology and Marketing, vol. 36, no. 5, pp.520-529, DOI: 10.1002/mar.21194, accessed 27 April 2019, <https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1002/mar.21194>

Schiffman, LG and Wisenblit, JL 2015, Consumer Behaviour, 11th edn, Pearson, United States.

Statista 2019, ‘Revenue of McDonald’s Corporation worldwide from 2005 to 2018 (in billion U.S. dollars)*’, accessed 28 April 2019, <https://www.statista.com/statistics/208917/revenue-of-the-mcdonalds-corporation-since-2005/>

Taormina, RJ and Gao, JH 2013, ‘Maslow and the Motivation Hierarchy: Measuring Satisfaction of the Needs’, The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 126, no. 2, pp. 155-177, DOI: 10.5406/amerjpsyc.126.2.0155, accessed 4 May 2019, <https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/stable/pdf/10.5406/amerjpsyc.126.2.0155.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A148caab9d8efc364c904d70a81658e35>

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Valencia, GE, Cardenas, YD & Acevedo, CH 2018, ‘PEST analysis of wind energy in the world: From the worldwide boom to the emergent in Colombia’, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, vol. 1126, no. 1, p. 012019, accessed 7 May 2019,  <https://iopscience-iop org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/article/10.1088/17426596/1126/1/012019/pdf>
Wang 2017, ‘Nivea’s ‘White Is Purity’ ad campaign didn’t end well’, The Washington Post, accessed 22 April 2019, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/04/05/niveas-white-is-purity-ad-campaign-didnt-end-well/?utm_term=.2a17ea9f89b9>

This questionnaire examines Instagram Influencer trustworthiness, attractiveness and Instagram activities influence towards consumer purchase decision making. Likert scale is used for this questionnaire. From the sample questionnaire, there are a few aspects that can be improved.

In my opinion, the questions asked are quite complicated as long sentences are used. Instead, it will be better to use simple sentences which is easier for respondents to understand.

Next, I personally feel that the questionnaire is a little too lengthy. Some respondents may not be willing to spare that much of time in answering online questionnaires. To ensure respondents are prepared to answer the questionnaire, my suggestion is to include the sentence “This questionnaire will take you around 10 minutes to complete” before the questions. By doing so, respondents will know how long they will need to spare to complete this questionnaire.

The last improvement that I would like to suggest is that the way of how the questions are being asked. This is due to the reason that some of the questions are leading questions which will direct to bias results from the respondents.

Overall, I think that the questionnaire is clear as the purpose of conducting the questionnaire is stated in the beginning.

1) Neutrogena is a manufacturer of personal care products for young adults. The company would like to extend its facial cleansers product line. Design (1) a qualitative and (2) a quantitative research design for the company focused on this objective.

Neutrogena’s current state can be addressed using Product Life Cycle theory which is the maturity stage. The company’s plan to extend its facial cleansers product line is due to the reason as their product is approaching towards the decline stage. By extending the product line, it will eventually build sales and move the company in a whole new direction.

Problem Statement:

1. How likely are customers to buy facial cleansers that are suitable for acne prone skin?
2. Is price their main consideration when deciding on purchase?

Research Objective:

To find out if customers are willing to purchase facial cleansers that are suitable for acne prone skin and whether they are price elastic to the product.

 

We will be conducting the research using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The research will be taking place in shopping malls and will be targeting 100 respondents, age ranging from 18-25 years old. This is because respondents who are age 18-25 are young adults who may potentially suffer from acne problems. For both methods, the research responses will be recorded using a phone’s voice recorder.

 

Qualitative Research:

1. Do you have acne prone skin?
2. What is your current skin type?
3. How often do you cleanse your face? How many times a day?

 

Quantitative Research:

1. From scale 1-5, how likely are you to purchase a facial cleanser that is suitable for acne prone skin?
2. From scale 1-5, how likely does price affect your decision making on the purchase of facial cleansers?

Refer to Schiffman and Wisenblit al (2015) Ch.16 page 425

2) Which methods of survey would you adopt to investigate the attitudes of a group regarding the shopping experience in Japanese department stores such as Isetan, Sogo and Mitsukoshi?

In this case of investigating the shoppers’ shopping experience in Japanese department stores, we would go for qualitative method instead of quantitative, the reason of this is because it would be hard to truly understand the insights and attitude of people by using quantitative method. Therefore, to understand their perspective, we would use individual interview. The three questions are:

• You would prefer to visit which of the Japanese department stores more often, why?
• What satisfied you the most in Japanese department stores, the product or service, by how?
• Which product would you purchase when you visit the Japanese department stores?

 

3) Nestle conducted extensive and accurate market research before deciding to put Nespresso in production. Using web sources, press articles, and the corporate website, outline your background research and provide the reason for the success of the famous espresso brand,which featured George Clooney and Matt Damon in a testimonial and has become a veritable case of successful marketing.

Using a celebrity to endorse a brand can be an effective strategy to draw more customers. Nespresso have discussed with their Nespresso Club Members to choose a more suitable celebrity to endorse the Nespresso brand. They chose Georges Clooney and Matt Damon as their brand ambassador because they have charmed fans and coffees consumers as the perfect personification of the understated elegance and authenticity that make Nespresso what it is today.

By using this celebrity endorsement, Nespresso successfully build awareness for their brand and build sustainability credentials for the Nespresso brand all of the world. Not only that, Nespresso got over 50 million total views on one of their YouTube Campaign which partner with George Clooney and Matt Damon ( Think With Google 2014). Moreover, Georges Clooney as their long term ambassador is because he fit to their brand that there’s a value added from the celebrity to the brand. The celebrities they collaborate with are with good image and high popularity which also one of Nespresso competitive advantage for them to stand well in the market for so long.

 

Written by:

1. Ng Jay Vyn 5958970
2. Tang Jia Jun 5951550
3. Goh Chye Nee 6316876
4. Soon Su Shiuan 5968082

The worst consumer behaviour I have encountered was a few months ago at The Manhattan Fish Market. It is a well-known seafood restaurant.

I visited The Manhattan Fish Market with my friend a few months ago. Basically we were their first customers. After being seated, my friend and I placed our orders immediately as we have already decided what to eat. For us, we actually do visit The Manhattan Fish Market quite often as we enjoy the dishes they serve. The waitress was friendly. A few moments later, more and more customers came. My friend’s order came after 10 minutes. I wanted to ask the waiter about my meal but we were left unattended as there were many customers. After 40 minutes, I decided to leave as I felt that my request was ignored by the service crew.

In my opinion, attitude is the most important criteria especially in the hospitality industry. The waiter should have informed us when one of the orders was not available for that day. Instead, he took my order knowing that it was unavailable. Besides, we even waited around 40 minutes for my meal to arrive when other customers who arrived later than us had already finished their meal and left. We did remind the waiter that my order had not arrived. After few reminders, I couldn’t bear with it anymore and asked for the bill. Fortunately, they didn’t charge us for my meal that didn’t arrive. However, the cashier was unaware of the order I placed was not delivered to me. Hungry and angry, we left the place.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton