Marketing Planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Marketing Planning - Essay Example ............................................ 3.0 How are we going to get there?.................................................................................. 4.0 Implementation........................................................................................................... 5.0 Ethical issues............................................................................................................... 6.0 Possible problems........................................................................................................ References Appendix Marketing Plan: Sainsbury’s 1.0 Introduction J Sainsbury Plc is a supermarket chain in the United Kingdom currently maintaining a 15 percent market share (Thompson 2010). Sainsbury competes with major supermarkets such as Tesco, Morrison’s and Asda. Tesco, the company’s main competitor holding 28 percent of market share in the UK for this industry, has maintained its leadership position through innovation in p roduct and service delivery as well as global brand loyalty. Sainsbury offers traditional products in the food category and has recently diversified to include clothing styles that are exclusive to the supermarket. Sainsbury is recognised not only for its high quality products, but for its emphasis on corporate social responsibility which provides the company with a positive brand reputation. However, Sainsbury’s is unable to outperform its main competition, which is attributable to lack of effective promotion. This marketing plan focuses on building revenues through marketing of the company’s new clothing line, branded under the name Tu. The Tu line targets young adult female consumers, providing lightweight and contemporary clothing with a fashion-forward design and motif. The company had, until recently, believed that the Tu line was a â€Å"stand alone brand† (Sainsbury 2011, p.3). However, the Tu clothing line cannot support revenue growth for the supermark et chain without creating a brand personality and developing a more effective promotional campaign. 2.0 The marketing plan This section highlights the rebranding strategy necessary to achieve brand recognition and brand preference in the young female target market and relevant audits of the current situation faced by the Tu clothing line. 2.1 Current situation Currently, the Tu clothing line provides Sainsbury with ?680 million in sales revenues (Reid 2013). This is insignificant considering the costs of distribution, manufacture and importation of materials utilised for production. Sainsbury is attempting to compete with such companies as Marks & Spencer and Zara which produce similar fashion merchandise under a fast fashion model. These competing organisations have well-established brands and consumer loyalty for providing relevant and modern fashion styles, making it difficult for the company to lure consumers to the Tu brand. Additionally, the Tu brand boasts 60 percent of its c urrent sales volumes stemming from impulse shoppers, meaning that consumers are not actively seeking to shop for clothing at Sainsbury’s market, instead purchasing whilst shopping in the supermarket for food products. Sainsbury’s corporate leadership recognises this shortcoming and points out that consumers have â€Å"tight budgets† and the business must â€Å"create outfits that catch attention† (The Guardian 2012, p.2). Sainsbury is also redeveloping the in-store experience to enhance the clothing shopping experience, adding fitting rooms and floor models that emulate the fashion floors of

The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal - Essay Example The author made references to similar instances which apparently happened and documented through the experiment conducted by Philip G. Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford University. Likewise, the reasons for the change in behavior were likewise supported through another set of experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, which were discussed extensively in the article entitled â€Å"Perils of Obedience† published in Harper’s in 1973. Using these resources, the current discourse hereby asserts that the behavior of the American guards could be explained from the findings of experiments espoused by Zimbardo and Milgram. Analysis of the Situation To enable one to effectively respond to the question, there is a need to establish an examination of the situation that led these American soldiers to act viciously. As noted by Szegedy-Maszak (2004), â€Å"while many theories have been advanced about the forces that tragically came together at Abu Ghraib--inadequate traini ng, overzealous intelligence gathering, failure of leadership--none can adequately account for the hardening of heart necessary for such sadism† (p. 174). The article written by Jehl and Schmitt (2004) and published in The New York Times provided a more vivid scenario that presented conditions that set the stage for the apparent sadistic behavior. According to the authors, the members of the military police battalion who were sent to Iraq to serve as prison guards were untrained, unprepared, and completely inexperienced in this particular endeavor. Likewise, the Abu Ghraib prison was described as to detain as much as 7,000 prisoners, from an initial capacity of 2,000; which contributed to increasingly chaotic conditions, difficulties in overseeing, and effecively controlling security conditions. It was revealed that â€Å"in Abu Ghraib the soldiers suddenly found themselves under attack virtually every night from insurgents outside the prison† (Jehl & Schmitt: A trouble d unit, 2004, par. 19). The threat was reported to necessitate the infusion of military intelligence officers. These officers were noted to be the ultimate source of abuse. Factors that Explain the Behavior of American Guards In Zimbardo’s experiments, it was explicitly noted that abuses and atrocities actually ensued from the very power that was accorded to the students, enacting the security guards’ roles. As emphasized, from initially starting as ensuring that â€Å"they must maintain ‘law and order’ in this prison, that they were responsible for handling any trouble that might break out, and they were cautioned about the seriousness and potential dangers of the situation they were about to enter† (Zimbardo, 1973, p. 41), the presence of the following factors were actually evident and similar to the Abu Ghraib prison: (1) power to maintain law and order; (2) imminent threats from prisoners or from external sources of chaos that could endanger the ir lives; (3) the apparent need to conform to the norms of society in terms of responding to the social pressures of the prison environment; and, likewise, (4) the natural response for the application of forms of sadism, to purportedly control prisoners or make them submit to the orders given, with or without justifiable rationales. Using the experiment conducted by Milgram (1973), one could evaluate that the power of obedience was expected to have been ingrained in every individual’s being; and thereby, prison guards who are expected to be followed with regards to orders being directed to prisoners, resort to the authority and powers vested in them, to inflict whatever action is deemed necessary to enable their subjects to react and respond, as directed. As