I will be investigating how marketing helps businesses using an organisation that has a national promotional campaign such as Sony for its products or services. Sony’s aims and objectives Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation and one of the world’s largest media conglomerates with revenue $66. 39 billion, based in Tokyo. Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communication, video games, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets.

Sony Corporation is the electronics businesses unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engages in business through its five operating segments – electronics, games, entertainment (motion pictures and music), financial services and other. These make Sony one of the most comprehensive in the world. Every business has an aim or goal either a short or a long term target in enable to succeed and move forward. Sony aims to continue being one of the world’s leading consumer brands in the 21st century, providing customers with a range of attractive products, content and services.

To confirm and strengthen this position Sony has embarked on ‘Transformation 60’, a series of fundamental reforms to the Sony Group. Transformation 60 consists of: * Clarifying operational structure and concentrating technology and resources for growth * Fundamentally reforming operational profit and structure. Through these changes Sony aims to secure a consolidated operating profit margin of at least 10%. Sony also believes that theses changes will lay foundation for the creation of new value and significant growth. Sony’s aims are to satisfy the customers and to expand their business as much as possible e. g.

The Japanese government has given Sony the provisional go-ahead to set up an online bank. Sony bank aims to change all this, and to capitalise on its parent company’s brand name to lure in customers, providing them with low cost service which equals in permanent and loyal customers. Sony has smart objectives that are specific; measurable that can quantify the results, agreed to achievable with extra efforts, relevant and time bounded (governed by deadlines). Their objectives are to reach the heights and they can only do this by staying ahead of all their competitors and by introducing new technology as much as possible e.

g. recently Sony is trying to do for e-books what Apple has done for downloadable digital music. It has launched a handled device for electronic books. Sony is extremely proud of their objectives and targets program. Every department is required to have objectives and targets, which are reviewed, at each management review at the end of the fiscal year. This has lead to a very diverse and expansive program and everyone feels that they are participating in continual improvements. Relating the promotional campaign to the achievement of those aims and objectives

Promotional campaign is an advertising campaign, which consists of many series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). Advertising campaigns appear in different media across a specific time frame. The critical part of making an advertising campaign is determining a campaign theme, as it sets the tone for the individual advertisement and other forms of marketing communications will be used. The campaign theme is the central message that will be communicated in the promotional activities.

Sony’s Camcorder Campaign – the hottest camcorders of this past holiday season were Sony’s new line of DVD camcorders. Even though this was Sony’s first year in the DVD camcorder market, the models flew off the shelves, largely because of Sony’s aggressive DVD camcorder television marketing campaign – showing the power of television. Although the campaign was simple, it was effective and broke new ground in camcorder marketing efforts. The success of Sony’s campaign also means that we are going to see much more aggressive advertising by the top camcorder manufacturers.

Sony’s achieves its aims and objectives in all aspects, for instance, the DVD camcorder beat all expectation this year. They were the most popular camcorder in their price category. Their success can largely be attributed to the national marketing campaign as well as the quality f the Sony DVD camcorders. This clearly shows that Sony’s priority was to satisfy their customers and that they could only do by investing money in the maintenance of the camcorders and gaining respect by investing in the national marketing campaign. The ad featured the Luis family which appeared in Sony television ads in 2002.

In those ads the interconnectivity of the Sony products was featured. The ad starts with a young teenage couple holding hands and the teenage boy of the couple ‘sweet talking’ his girlfriend. What the two don’t see is that the young boy’s sister is recording them with a DVD camcorder. The commercial than goes to a shot of the family getting ready to watch a movie in the family room. The family expects to be watching a movie, but the young daughter who was filming earlier takes the DVD of the boy ‘making his moves’ out of the camcorder and puts it into the DVD player and plays it to the entire family.

Understandably, the teenage boy is then embarrassed by the whole exhibition. The fact that Sony intentionally used a young child to film and put the DVD in the DVD player shows how easy the process is. The DVD camcorder ad was therefore specifically was targeting families with children. The aim here was clearly to promote the launch of their camcorders and show all the features and what not through the advertisement on television successfully, which they managed to do it in a simple and creative way which attracted a worldwide audience.

Sony didn’t only advertise their camcorders through television but also ran a print campaign, advertising their DCR-TRV38 and DCR-TRV22 models of camcorders. One of the ads targeted young families while the other titled the ‘Roller Coaster’ showed the camcorders in action. They expanded the reach of the advertising beyond trade magazines. Sony also folded their company wide branding message ‘Like no other’ into a campaign for the DCR-VX2100 model, which ran print ads in industry publications as well as some websites. Explain how the promotion “p” relates to the other elements of the marketing mix the campaign

Promotion is one of the four key aspects of the marketing mix. The other three elements are Product, Placement and Price. I will be explaining how promotion relates to product, price and placement in this campaign for Sony. Product – the product aspect of marketing deal with specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the users needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support. The product that Sony is promoting is DVD camcorders. Sony has extremely successfully promoted their product through the use of T. V.

ads and by running a print campaign. Place/distribution – refers to how the product gets to customer, for example, point of sale or retailing. Sony has highlighted their campaign at 39 Sony Style Stores across the country, which featured live, interactive face detection technology displays, continuous loops of the television spots in high definitions, and store windows showcasing the campaign. The online presence also included sponsorship of internet websites like Yahoo’s tech centre, MSN’s homepage, Disney’s activity pages and more. The out of home promotion elements included billboards, bus shelters, bus wraps and phone booths.

The ads premiered during Fox’s ‘Prison Break’ finale and CBS, 2 and a half men, and then premiered on additional network television programs ad select cable outlets. Sony’s promotional methods became a huge hit and so did their product, they very cleverly premiered their ads when such popular shows like Prison Break were on television which only meant one thing that thousands of people were watching at that time across the country. Price – this refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The retail price for the camcorder was.

Sony offered a new method of paying online ‘bill me later’, which meant that you can buy the product and have the option of paying it later through monthly installments, with this method you can manage your account and pay your bill online instantly. You could also buy the product by using bill me later method in store not just online. Sony has improved their online checkout system by making it easy and fast to checkout e. g. speed through checkout – no account number, no waiting and no worries, it only takes a few easy steps to checkout and you’re done.

Sony also introduced a special offer ‘no payment for up to 6 months’, this promotional offer was is valid at a purchase of i?? 100 or more. Sony camcorders turned out to be the most popular camcorder in their price category, partly due to the use of the 4 marketing mix that Sony was able to be successful as they wisely promoted their product through many methods such as ads on T. V, on popular websites, prints etc. Sony launched such a product with such unique feature that no one was able to compete and that was the camcorders USP.

The place/distribution of the product was huge, by demonstrating and promoting all over the world they attracted millions of people and targeting families with children was an intelligent strategy. The fact that Sony was extremely successful at the launch of their product was partly because of promoting, the product itself, price (special offer) and place/distribution was conducted with great strategies at the same time which is essential for any business to adapt these marketing strategies. If the 4 marketing mix are not successful before/during the time of launch, your product is nothing.

Analyzing Marketing Mix in relation to the achievement of the marketing and promotional objectives and through them the business aims and objectives The marketing mix is known elements that make up the marketing process. They include: Price, Product, Place, and Promotion. Price – in relation to the achievement, the price is related to the business aims and objectives in many ways e. g. the prices of many products in Sony are highly competitive compared to their rivals such as Panasonic and Philips. Sony’s aim was to provide low cost services for their customers.

Their aim is to provide quality product in less price, in other words value for money. Sony has successfully met their aim when they launched their camcorders. Sony’s camcorders where unique with great features installed, their USP was actually the DVD in the camcorders which allows you to record your home videos and then you just simply play it in your DVD players, which makes your life much easier as you skip the whole process of converting the video on to the DVD CD which is troublesome and most of the customers didn’t know how to do that.

Sony’s camcorders were also the most popular in their price category which means a quality product in low price. Therefore Sony’s aims and objectives have been met. Product – The promotional objectives of Sony is to generate demand and increase sales of their products. Sony is way ahead of their game in this case and has succeeded in creating that demand of their products. The launch of their camcorders was a huge accomplishment as camcorders were flying off the shelves.

The product is very high tech with all the new features e. g. records high quality, compact, LCD touch screen, light weight etc, which tells us that Sony has been highly successful in meeting their promotional objectives. Place – Sony’s aim in relation to the place is to expand their business and have their business recognised across the globe. The way they can actually expand is by an increase in their current sales. In relation to the achievement, the place is related to the business aims and objectives in many ways.

When Sony launched their camcorders their adverts were placed everywhere e. g. on internet, bus stops, television, magazines etc. The product was being sold at all electronics store around the country and Sony had an huge increase in their sales, so therefore their whole process have been great because Sony had used all the elements of marketing mix exceptionally well which was bound to take Sony one step closer to become the market leader e. g.

to provide the right products at the right price, in the right location and promoting it appropriately. It is important for an organization to have a good understanding of the marketing mix. Each element is important when developing a marketing plan. The specification of these four variables creates a promotional mix, or promotional plan. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the four subcategories, and how much money to budget for each.

A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image. How the professional campaign advertising agencies can contribute to the success of a marketing campaign Advertising is the most important feature of the marketing mix, as it is how you inform your potential customers of the other three P’s.

Advertising provides an opportunity to inform your potential customers of the advantages of using your product or service, the price and the place where they can obtain it from. Therefore it is not the case of ‘do I need to advertise’; it is why you must advertise. Business organizations often use professionals from specialist agencies to help them produce an effective campaign that will achieve the promotional objectives. A good campaign must also use the right media in order to convey their message to their worldwide audience.