In lieu of a final exam or team case competition, the final exercise this (half)

In lieu of a final exam or team case competition, the final exercise this (half) semester will be a “marketing audit” of an organization of your choosing, submitted in the form of a video presentation. Please write the video scriipt & prepare the Powerpoint slide deck. This assignment is designed to promote active, integrative learning, as well as challenge your critical thinking and communication skills. Moreover, the assignment should be useful and make the course more meaningful as it challenges students to synthesize and apply what they learn from the course.
Assignment descriiption. The assignment involves conducting a “marketing audit” of an organization of the student’s own choosing. The assignment is designed to help students think about and apply key concepts from the Mktg7011 course. This is an individual assignment, which will be due at the end of course, on Saturday, Oct 7 by 11:59 PM.
Selecting an organization. The first task is to select an organization of interest to you. (Please be creative in your selection to spare your graders from another Starbucks, Kroger, or P&G audit). It can be the organization for which you currently work, that of a competitor in your industry, one for which you aspire to work in the future, the employer of your spouse or parent, a worthy not-for-profit organization you would like to help, or any other organization – perhaps one for which you are a supplier, customer, or volunteer. Marketing principles apply broadly to all types of organizations, including small, family-owned businesses, large multinational corporations, charities, fine or performing arts organizations, religious and political groups, etc. So, feel free to think beyond your own employer. In fact, beware the hazards of doing an audit on your current employer’s organization! (Advantages: familiarity, access to information. Hazards: can you be objective and critical? An audit is not a love letter or promotional piece.)
What goes in a marketing audit? A marketing audit is a report on an organization, its product(s) and marketing practices, target market, competitors, and the environment in which it operates. It is not a “marketing plan,” which is often for a specific product or brand and includes projected and pro-forma income; but rather an overview of an organization, its current situation, strengths and weaknesses of the organization, opportunities and threats posed by the environment, marketing objectives, strategies, and programs, including a critical summary (“report card”) of how it creates, communicates, and delivers value through a mix of product, place (distribution), price, and promotion.
Here is a generic outline of issues to be addressed. You can follow this outline or create your own, as appropriate to your chosen organization. Format is not as important as content. You need not restrict yourself to addressing solely these issues if your audit takes you elsewhere.
Profile the organization: Brief history, mission, current situation. What are your org’s marketing objectives and positioning strategies? What are their corporate values? Are they reflected in a mission statement? In a Code of Ethics?
How do current trends in the economic, technological, social, cultural, political/legal/regulatory environment affect the organization? What is the structure of the industry? Who are the major competitors? (Consider both direct and indirect competition. For example, a bookstore might compete with other bookstores, but also with Amazon.com, scrambled merchandiser retailers who sell some books as a side item, and public libraries. More broadly still, a bookstore might compete with book alternatives such as electronic media or non-reading leisure activities.)
Perform a SWOT analysis. Identify your org’s distinctive advantages and key opportunities. Discuss the “matching” of these two things.
Profile the market. Who are the target customers of this organization? (Caution: Avoid the ONE BIG SEGMENT mistake. Organizations from grocery stores to churches purport to “welcome everybody” and often define their market in broad terms, such as “the people of Cincinnati.” Yet, despite some overlap, Kroger, Whole Foods, Walmart, and Dorothy Lane Market customers are not the same customers. Similarly, peek into a church, hair salon, or Tractor Supply that “welcomes everybody,” and you may find birds or a feather rather than a representative sample of the general population. End of caution.) What are target customers’ characteristics? What decision criteria do they use? What motivates their patronage? Here’s your chance to delve into customer behavior.
Products and services. What products and services does your org make, sell, perform? What is the core product? What type of product is it? In what stage of the product life cycle is the product, and what does this imply for how it is marketed? What factors influence adoption of the product and speed of diffusion?
How does your org deliver value? Discuss distribution strategy (or location strategy if it is a retail org). How do they use the internet?
Pricing strategy. What kind of price policy does the org use? How do prices support their image/positioning? Is demand price elastic or inelastic? What is the strength of the price-perceived-quality relationship for this org’s product(s)?
How does your org communicate value? Discuss their promotional strategies and programs, including ads, brochures, personal selling, sales promotions, trade shows, integrated marketing communication, web page, social media, etc. What is their promotional budget (if known)? Is their promotional strategy consistent with their code of ethics?
If your org is primarily a service provider – i.e., their core product is an intangible service rather than a tangible good – profile their people (service providers), “servicescape,” and processes. How does the org treat its employees and how does this influence customer service performance?
The report should conclude with a critical summary of the org’s marketing practices and a list of recommendations. Recommendations must be specific, actionable, realistic, justified, and flow logically from your audit.
Information sources. You may use any (legal, ethical) informational sources available to you, including but not limited to internal documents of the organization, industry reports, governmental sources, public documents such as newspaper reports, court records, and personal interviews with org personnel. However, because this is an individual assignment, you should not consult with other students. Additionally, do not rely solely on the wiki and company web sites! The expectation is that you will dig deeper, consulting public and internal sources.
Format of report. Audits should be submitted in the form of a 10-12 minute video presentation, created and submitted using the Kaltura tool, with slides and a voice narration. Can this outline be covered in 10-12 minutes? Yes, it can. Create a cover slide plus 10 slides. Use bullet points. Budget a minute per slide to talk us through. (Special note for Spring 2023: No need to be super-formal. Skip the coat and tie or pearls, don’t worry about your lingering Covid-19 hair (have you seen your professors?!?), and if you sneeze, say “excuse me” and move on – please don’t re-record to get it perfect. Content and insight are the thing. That said, if you are wearing a ball cap turned backward in the video, your report had better be about an organization that makes/sells ball caps or Mother Lindner’s Hammer of Justice will come down on the professionalism component of your grade. Please keep it light, but professional.)
Grading. This assignment counts for a significant chunk of your grade in MKTG7011. Grading criteria include clarity and professionalism of report, thoroughness, evidence of effort to gather information, variety of informational sources, critical analysis (versus mere descriiption), originality, creativity, and recommendations that meet the criteria specified in #10 above. See Rubric (below).
Note on plagiarism: Avoid it. Student Code of Conduct applies. Do not cut and paste from the internet or other electronic sources without crediting the source. This goes for images as well as text. Document all sources with citations at the bottom of your slides or on a slide at the end of your presentation, using any bibliographic format, with link as appropriate.