Marketing analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing analysis - Essay Example Profitable businesses have to give equal strategic importance to all these four aspects of marketing if they want to compete for a greater share in increasingly tumultuous markets. In this age of increasing and accessible media technology, the customer has become even more demanding about what they will buy or not given. There is excess information readily available to compare and contrast various business offerings and any complaint or minor discrepancy about a certain brand can be communicated to the mass marketplace very easily. In such conditions, claiming to be the best business in any sector is no small feat but Vodafone, British’s top most mobile network service provider and the world’s second biggest brand by both revenue and subscribers (intangible business, 2008, pg 10) has managed to attain and maintain this position for quite some time. Launched in 1982 as a joint venture between Racal Electronics plc's subsidiary Racal Strategic Radio Ltd along with Millico m and the Hambros Technology Trust; Vodafone Group was born as a separate brand and business in 1991 with the divergence of Racal Telecom from Racal Electronics (cellnet, 2012). Over the past two decades, the telecommunications giant has pursued an aggressive expansion strategy combined with emotional and relatable marketing campaigns to cement their brand; â€Å"Its brand is the most geographically spread and is the second most valuable telecoms brand in the world, worth $22.1bn.† (intangible business, 2008, pg 10) Intagible business, 2008. The World’s Most Valuable Mobile Telecoms Brands 2008 [Online]. Pg 14 In this research done by intangible business, an analysis of the world’s largest telecom brands was done through publicly available information.500 operations were studies to provide the top 100 rankings based on brand value for share holders. In a heavily congested market with little to no differentiation between the product offerings, businesses have to rely on the strength of their brand to retain loyal customers, encourage trial by new customers and lead to steady revenue and profit growth. Vodafone brand value was determined as $22.1Bn in 2008. 2.0 Vodafone network The previous year was an extremely fruitful one for the mobile network â€Å"Vodafone  beat expectations to report a 4.1% rise in revenues to ?23.5bn, with 9.4 million new customers joining its network in the last six months.† (Garside, 2011). Analyzing the strategic and marketing policies followed by the company can help in identifying the reasons for their continued profitability 2.1 The British Market The business is headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire, England, though through expansion and acquisition they have managed to form strong markets in many different countries. Vodafone’s started aggressive brand growth in the 1990s, when the business began to consolidate itself on the British high-street. Starting from 1996, Vodafone acquired the two thir ds of Talkland it did not already own for ?30.6 million. Later the same year, Vodafone purchased Peoples Phone for ?77 million in a defensive move. The 181 store chain  provided Vodafone with the necessary physical assets to strengthen their presence and distribution channels for further growth. Soon it added Astec Communications, a service provider with 21 stores, in the acquisition portfolio by purchasing 80% of the company (cellnet, 2012). With its presence secured in the British market, Vodafone went on to concentrate on enhancing its brand