Depending on the organisational structure of the firm, a separate marketing mix is usually crafted for each market segment or for each product offering. Borden goes on to suggest a procedure for developing a marketing mix, claiming that you need two sets of information as a list of forces that influence these decision variables, and a list of important elements that go into the mix.

Generally reengineering theorists claim that, against the mix process, it re-enforces functional divisions within a company that lead to inefficiencies, rather than organising a firm into functional specialties (like marketing, sales, advertising, marketing research, new product development, to production, to marketing and distribution and customer satisfaction), according to James Champy and Michael Hammer (Champy, J. and Hammer, M. 1993).

The marketing mix approach leads to unprofitable decisions because it is not grounded in financial objectives such as increasing shareholder value, claims Peter Doyle (Doyle, P. 2000), who states that it has never been clear what criteria to use in determining optimum marketing mix. Adequate profit margins have not been generated with objectives such as providing solutions for customers at low cost. Doyle argues that a net present value approach that maximises shareholder value provides a ‘rational framework’ for managing the marketing mix, as well as claiming that developing marketing based objectives while ignoring profitability has resulted in the dot-com crash and the Japanese economic collapse.

In addition, he also claims that ignoring marketing objectives while pursuing a ROI approach is just as problematic. Some claim that, against McCarthy’s four Ps, it is not an appropriate model for industrial product marketing and they are too strongly oriented towards consumer markets. Others claim it is not appropriate for the marketing of services and has too strong of a product market perspective. INTRODUCTION TO MARKET ANALYSIS18

The second component of this introduction concerns the planning activities of a firm in which market analysis plays a major part in its activities. A market analysis guides decisions on work force expansion or contraction, promotional activities, facility expansion, inventory, purchase, purchases of capital equipment and many other aspects of a company. These areas must have forecasts which are accurate and how they were derived must be understood by decision makers.

All managers must make decisions using the data of market analysis and understand how it was derived, but not all managers are asked to conduct this. However, an understanding of the tools most used for analysing markets and making sales forecasts is needed by all managers due to the fact that to understand a market analysis, managers need some knowledge of computers and a basic understanding of statistics. Related to sales forecasting, there are a large number of market analysis techniques, where others are more general for analysing markets.

Several areas in which market analysis is important is defined in the literature including market research, marketing strategy and sales forecasting, where market analysis and sales forecasting are complementary skills that should be possessed by any marketing manager. INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING CAMPAIGN19 The final component of this introduction concerns the marketing campaign which is essentially a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). Marketing campaigns appear in different media across a specific time frame.

It is fair to say that the critical part of making a marketing campaign is determining a campaign theme, as it sets the tone for the individual advertisements and other forms of marketing communications, in relation to the central message and promotional activities. MARKETING MIX: PRODUCT The existing media product is a daily tabloid newspaper called The Sun. Product is the first of the Four Ps and the most important one because if the product is not good enough to satisfy the customer needs no marketing mix can make its sale.

The functions of designing the product and its features, setting a quality standard, the branding, attractive packaging, added services, after sales, warranty, product life and returns fall under this head and the success or failure of the product highly depends on these functions. The Sun is published and circulated in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, which affects the design and content to a certain extent due to the fact that it balances its focus on both British and International news and current affairs.

It is also suggestive that the design and content of the newspaper, with its ease of reading used to represent the diverse number of news stories on a daily basis, are reasons as to why it has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world. As previously established, The Sun has more than twice as many readers in the ABC1 demographic as its upmarket stablemate The Times, although much less of a proportion of total sales.

It is a tabloid format which refers to a smaller newspaper format per spread, tending to emphasise sensational crime stories, gossip columns, repeating scandalous innuendos about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and other so-called ‘junk food news’. It is a popular newspaper format in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland where it is published, with design and content contrasting to that of a broadsheet by not being traditionally associated with ‘higher-quality’ journalism as featured in The Times.

On a general scale, The Sun is a publication containing news, information and advertising, printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It has, for many years, thrived in the face of competition from technologies such as radio, television and the Internet. Recent developments on the Internet are, however, posing major challenges to the business model of this newspaper in terms of design and content. While The Sun is aimed at a broad spectrum of readers, usually geographically defined, it also focuses on groups of readers defined more by their interests than their location.

For example, there is a varying degree of daily content surrounding business and sports. The design and content of The Sun newspaper is often described as being general-interest or journals of current news. It often includes political events, crime, business, culture, sports and opinions in the form of editorials, columns and political cartoons. The newspaper uses photographs to illustrate stories and use editorial cartoonists to illustrate writing that is opinion, rather than news. These content features are carefully considered to ensure design is effective and achieves maximum efficiency.

Sections and supplements combine with features to create the content for the newspaper, where design refers to the order of items. An example includes the popular Sun Woman, covering diet and fitness on Monday, fashion on Tuesday, and a two-page spread on Wednesday. In addition, Supergoals and Midweek Supergoals provide coverage during the football season usually on a Monday, Thursday and Saturday. To increase the level of sports content in the newspaper, there is often extended sports coverage on Wednesdays which has proven very successful.

A fundamental aspect of the content of The Sun involves personalities Jane Moore, Fergus Shanahan and Jon Gaunt with the Social Comment, as well as Ally Ross on TV, Sun Motors with Kevin Gibson, and weekend favourites Lorraine Kelly and Jeremy Clarkson who cover the main news. Content is important to the newspaper’s success, where design is particularly significant to the four-page health section printed once a week, as well as Fit Squad and Something for the Weekend.

In relation to Saturdays, content is very different with Sun World Travel, Sun Women Party Girls, Street Chic with Erica Davies, The Favourite during the racing season and TV Magazine being published to a large number of readers. On a Saturday, content is more specific but the design of the newspaper is adapted for the Social Comment by Lorraine Kelly, Travel with Lisa Minot at three pages long, Gardening with Peter Seabrook, and the popular classic Clarkson on Saturday. The design of the newspaper is essential to its success in publication, circulation and overall sale.

However, despite the many variations between weekdays and weekends evident in The Sun, daily content is quite possibly even more important to ensuring consistency of design. TV Biz and TV Today are read by a large number of audiences and Bizarre with Victoria Newton is a popular feature read by many. However, the type of content people read is clear with the Dear Deirdre Agony Aunt and Mystic Meg pages featured daily. However, this newspaper seems to facilitate a certain degree of freedom for readers to contribute to the design and content with the Dear Sun Letters Page.

In addition, the cartoons Premier and Hager help illustrate certain news or sport stories, with city and business news in Sun City adding to the variety of coverage featured within The Sun in which content is designed to fulfill the needs and wants of a number of different readers, with the design of the newspaper reflecting this fact very well. The content of The Sun has been transformed to reflect the popular taste of readers and influencing public opinion.

This often reflects the design of the newspaper as it has to accommodate such current issues where they purport to offer an ‘alternative’ viewpoint, either in the sense that the newspaper’s editors are more nationally-oriented or that the newspaper is editorially independent from major media conglomerates. Therefore it is important that the newspaper understands this. Design often supports the content by providing a framework for which they are laid out, where the newspaper is commonly known to emphasise sensational crime stories, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news.

Often, newspaper allegations about the sexual practices, drug use or private conduct of celebrities is borderline defamatory where their design is often bold and realistically difficult ‘not to miss’. This is to ensure content attracts audiences to particular stories with reference to the design set by the tabloid press. The Sun tends to simply and sensationally give more prominence than broadsheets to celebrities, sports, crime stories and even hoaxes.

It also readily takes a political position on news stories as right-wing, nationalist and populist allegiance, ridiculing politicians as well as demanding resignations and predicting election results. More realistically, today The Sun relies on stories about the entertainment industry, gossip concerning the British monarchy and sports, as well as news and politics for its content, with many items revolving around celebrities. In addition to writers covering celebrities-about-town and the latest soap opera storylines, it is always on the lookout for celebrities in trouble or scandal as its featured content.