MY MEDIA NETWORK

Prepared By

P.T.M.Subasinsana

Reg.No D116S33-1

Driving Brands for Results - Managerial Level

June 2012 Examination

Diploma in Marketing

SRI LANKA INSTITUTE OF MARKETING

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Contents1. Executive Summery.............................................................................................................................3

2. Introduction.........................................................................................................................................4

2.1 SWOT Analysis...........................................................................................................................5

3. Objectives................................................................................................................................................7

3.1 Long term Objectives for MMN........................................................................................................7

3.1.1 Costing........................................................................................................................................7

3.1.2 Distribution.................................................................................................................................7

3.1.3 Branding.....................................................................................................................................7

3.1.4 Sales Promotion..........................................................................................................................8

3.2 Short term Objectives for MMN........................................................................................................8

3.2.1 Costing........................................................................................................................................8

3.2.2 Distribution.................................................................................................................................8

3.2.3 Branding.....................................................................................................................................8

3.2.4 Sales Promotion..........................................................................................................................9

4. Brand Audit for Rasasaranee.............................................................................................................11

4.1 Corporation................................................................................................................................11

4.2 Distributors................................................................................................................................11

4.3 Customers..................................................................................................................................12

4.4 Competitors...............................................................................................................................12

4.5 Macro Environment...................................................................................................................13

4.5.1. Political....................................................................................................................................13

4.5.2 Economical...............................................................................................................................13

4.5.3 Social........................................................................................................................................13

4.5.4 Technological...........................................................................................................................13

4.5.5 Legal.........................................................................................................................................13

5. Brand positioning for Rasasaranee....................................................................................................15

6. Reference...........................................................................................................................................17

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1. Executive Summery

My media network organization has been in the Sri Lankan publication industry for past 6 years. Their core product is the “rasasaranee” newspaper. MMN recently launched Easy Food and Health Magazine. Easy Food and HealthCare magazines are published on a quarterly basis. But rasasaranee newspaper is published on monthly basis. Newspaper focuses on recipes and culinary news and few pages for lifestyle and health too. In order to successful in the future as a leading food paper in Sri Lanka MMN should have set long term and short term objectives. For each branding mix elements Branding, Sales promotion, Costing and Distribution set long term objectives and to achieve long term objectives develop short term objectives accordingly. MMN targets younger and older women to sell their products. Therefore the best and most suitable branding strategy for MMN organization Rasasaranee newspaper is focus strategy based on differentiation. Because of this strategy is targeted for narrow segment of buyers. Before going to the mass market MMN should improve their niche market by increasing market share within niche market. There are few ways to increase brand equity for MMN brands according to their financial position. Start social media advertising through Facebook, MySpace. Also they can start posting food related articles to blogs and twitter and organize contests and sponsoring to events, exhibitions are great ways to increase brand equity. Brand audit is done for rasasaranee covering corporation, distributors, customers, competitors and macro environment all forces. MMN employees’ commitment gives major impact to success corporation brands. Therefore good relationship between corporation and its employees ‘are very much important to success of brands. Competitor analysis is important to know about competitors. Creating goodwill with distributors and keeping alert to macro environment and also understanding the customers taste towards their products to will give a better chance to company to develop their products and provide a quality products to customers.

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2. Introduction

My media network organization has been in the Sri Lankan publication industry for past 6 years. Their core product is the “rasasaranee” newspaper. This newspaper focus on recipes and culinary news and also it includes lifestyles and healthcare aspects which include wide range of topics related to health and nutrition. Except this newspaper there are some products publish by My Media Network Organization such as Easy food and Health Guide magazine.

Rasasaranee newspaper has no direct competitors but there are few indirect competitors. Some of them are “Tharuni”,”Birida”,”Sirikatha” and website “http://srilankafood.net/”. But Easy Food and Health Magazine has direct competitor “Rasawimana”.

Easy Food and HealthCare magazines are published on a quarterly basis. Even though both magazines are publish quarterly basis Rasasarane magazine is publish on monthly basis. Magazine is published as a full color high quality print magazine. Magazines are sold through newspaper vendors, bookstores and supermarkets as well as exhibition in Colombo, Kandy and Galle.

My media network has worked together as a media partner for corporate events and exhibitions. Apart from providing valuable information on food and health these two new media also would attract advancements of companies waiting to position their products and services.

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2.1 SWOT Analysis

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STRENGTHS 1st Food focus paper in Sri Lanka

Almost 6 years of experience in publication industry

WEAKNESSES Financial difficulties

Inadequate supply of skilled labor

Lack of consumer awareness due to less advertising

OPPORTUNITIES Expand Distribution Island wide

Social Media marketing – facebook

THREATS Increase indirect competition/direct

competition may come

Increase bargaining power of suppliers

TASK 1

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3. Objectives

3.1 Long term Objectives for MMN

3.1.1 Costing Objective - : Reduce existing costing of raw materials and production cost

Rasasaranee newspaper and Easy Food and Health magazine most important raw materials are papers and ink. MMN is spending considerable cost for both of these. The better way to reduce these costs to find new papers and ink supplier/suppliers without changing the quality of both papers and ink. To minimize the production costs MMN needs to look new technologies to adapt to the production to increase production efficiency. Another option is available for lowering cost of raw materials. That technique is to adapt economics of scale for buying raw materials. MMN can buy raw material as a bulk. Therefore MMN can minimize future costs.

3.1.2 Distribution Objective -: To increase distribution in island wide for both rasasaranee newspaper and Easy Food and health magazine.

Target the rasasaranee newspaper and Easy Food and health magazine to islandwide customers who has similar needs for food related newspaper and magazines. Currently MMN distributes their magazines mostly on urban cities like Colombo, Galle and Kandy. To achieve long term objective MMN has to find distributors in rural areas and other urban cities. MMN should keep their trust and goodwill with existing distributors and potential distributors.

3.1.3 Branding Objective -: To build long term relationship with its stakeholders

Most profitable customers are assets to the company. So keeping tough with them regularly is important. Rasasaranee brand and Easy Food and Health magazine can improve this by giving loyalty cards to regular customers and sending free gift for selling higher sales volumes. Try to satisfy them by delivering exceptional service, caring more about them and looking after their interest. This will help to build long term relationship with its stakeholders.

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3.1.4 Sales Promotion Objective -: To build the relationship of loyalty to the brand and brand features.

To develop consumer loyalty long termly MMN needs to design for attracting new customers while maintaining existing consumers. MMN has to create long termly affect sales promotions programs to consumers. Increase pages of rasasaranee newspaper and Easy Food & Health magazine (posting more articles). Currently they are doing sales promotions by working with corporate events and exhibition, sponsoring to some cookery programs as well.

3.2 Short term Objectives for MMN

3.2.1 Costing Objective -: To maximize the current revenue.

To achieve long term objective of reduce costing of raw materials and production cost short termly rasasaranee newspaper and Easy Food magazine try to maximize the current revenue. But MMN cannot increase price of the products because Sri Lankan publication industry is oligopolistic market. But revenue can be maximized by increasing market share and lowering high cost. Increasing market share means increasing MMN customers so MMN has to produce more products therefore MMN can adapt economics of scale to reduce cost of raw materials and achieve long term objective.

3.2.2 Distribution Objective -: To enter the new markets

Long term distribution objective is to cover the distribution island wide. To achieve this objective MMN needs to enter new markets (territories). In each and every year objective should be set to increase market share within current markets as well as newly entered markets. Entering to new markets MMN needs to consider mainly distributors, competitors and readiness in the market. If the competitors are powerful and readiness is low in particular market MMN can enter to it as a niche market.

3.2.3 Branding Objective -: To establishment of MMN brands in mind of potential stakeholders.

To help to achieve long term objectives for MMN brands, MMN should establish its brands in their stakeholders mind. To do this MMN wants to create brand awareness. Brand awareness can create using advertising such as internet marketing and viral marketing campaign and through special events programs, sponsorships. MMN media has worked together as a partner for events to create brand awareness.

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3.2.4 Sales Promotion Objective -: To Increase customer satisfaction

To achieve long term objective to build customer loyalty to the brand and brand features short termly MMN has increase customer satisfaction. To do so MMN needs to organize sales promotion techniques by increasing the product quantity (Number of pages) adding more articles, giving prizes for consumers and discounts, fairs, free gift for distributors. MMN wants consumers to emphasize their products are value for money. This will increase customer satisfaction.

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TASK 2

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4. Brand Audit for Rasasaranee

A brand audit is a thorough examination of a brand’s current position in an industry compared to its competitors and the examination of its effectiveness.

4.1 Corporation

Corporation gives major impact for the brand. Rasasaranee brand future success or failure is largely depending on the MMN activities and its environment. Their corporation consists of 18 people staff. This staff produce rasasaranee newspaper to the market by including different cooking styles and recipes across the global along(But mostly in Sri Lankan) articles by some famous Sri Lankan chefs from star class hotels. Here MMN employees have great commitment to go beyond with the rasasaranee brand. They do all articles works up to distribution. Staff collects recipes from star class hotel chefs and print by themselves. MMN communicates its brand through TV programs such as ITN and Derana while telecasting food related programs. Rasasaranee has unique capabilities in food magazine industry and it was the 1st food paper in Sri Lanka. To go beyond to their brand vision with the rasasaranee brand employees in the communication must have positive attitude about the brand and even they should be able to recommend rasasaranee brand to others. And also a good relationship between corporation and its stakeholders is very much important to success of brand.

4.2 Distributors

Distributors and MMN organization objectives should be in line to success the brand. If there is a mismatch in objectives could damage rasasaranee brand. MMN needs to consider what their objectives, how MMN brands & competitor brands help to archive their goals. Sometimes distributor has more barging power. These distributors are more important to increase MMN brands awareness.

MMN organization delivers products directly newspaper vendors, Bookstores and supermarkets. Rasasaranee newspaper distributes almost 40% in southern and Colombo. Another 60% are distributed in island wide. But Easy food and health magazine distributes 100% in urbanely. Magazines are available in supermarkets like Keels, Arphico. Sometimes magazines and papers are sold through at some exhibitions in Colombo, Galle and Kandy. By improving incentives, reward schemes to distributors MMN organization can gain more sales.

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4.3 Customers

Customers are most important aspect of any organization. Rasasaranee food magazine mostly focus on younger and older women. Introducing new recipes according to the change in consumer taste is very important to keep rasasaranee customers long time. Most of consumers in urban cities are not time rich consumers. Therefore it is a good idea to place their magazines in food centers, supermarkets. They can buy magazines very easily without wasting more time.

When consumers buy brands consumers usually go through brand buying process. Rasasaranee brand needs to reduce their dissonance and make them to feel they bought the right product. Here rasasaranne brand should minimize consumer perceived risk which affects to the brand by continually posting correct and new recipes value for money to gain more customers while keeping exiting customers.

4.4 Competitors

MMN organization has no direct competition for the rasasaranee brands but there are indirect competitors such as “Tharuni” newspaper , “Birida” newspaper and also some websites give impact towards the rasasaranee and Easy Food and Health magazine . It is important to evaluate brand against competitors. Their strength , position and objectives give major impact of the our brand. Easy Food and health magazines’ main competitor is “Rasawimana” magazine. There are six dimensions (prism) to differentiate feature of rasasaranee brands from its competitors.

Physique - : Rasasaranee brand Diffrentiate newspaper creating covering page and internal pages more creativity. Top of the cover page brand name (red color) with center of the food photography therefore consumer can recognized easily rasasaranee brand.

Personality -: Rasasaranee brands’ personality is experiencing new healthy food recipes to women.

Reflection -: Rasasaranee newspaper gives emotional values to its consumers. Consumers reflect external about themselves to their peers (other women not using the paper) by using the newspaper. Rasasaranee consumers want peers to think they have more skills in cooking.

Self-Image -: Rasasaranee newspaper enables to its users to think they can make various new recipes. It says statement about them.

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4.5 Macro Environment

Change in the external environment gives major impact to the brand. There are few factors the company needs to consider to gain more benefits.

4.5.1. Political Political parties may come up with new policies about food and health. Some foods can be prohibited by selling. Therefore introducing new recipes those foods should be excluded.

4.5.2 Economical With the inflation the company should consider magazine price increase or keep it as same price. Also changing interest rate can cause to increase costs of borrowings.

4.5.3 Social Consumers’ interest may be changed with the time. Interest towards foods can be changed from traditional food recipes to modern food recipes or vice versa. MMN should identify this and post articles according to the consumer taste.

4.5.4 Technological Ways of food making may be changed with the technology. Therefore new recipes should adapt that technology to ease food making procedure. Also technology can reduce cost of production and improve products quality.

4.5.5 Legal When posting articles, new recipes MMN should be considered on copyrights issues.

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TASK 3

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5. Brand positioning for Rasasaranee

Brand positioning is a strategic approach to establishing a sustainable competitive advantage. There are five generic branding strategies useful in brand positioning. These generic competitive strategies are given below.

1. Low cost leadership strategy 2. Focused strategy based on lower costs3. Focused strategy based on differentiation.4. Broad differentiation strategy5. Best-cost provider strategy

Each of these strategies is focus on archiving different types of market positioning.

Low cost leadership strategy is not suitable for the Rasasaranee newspaper because this strategy target to mass market not to the niche market. If the Rasasaranee newspaper uses this strategy in the future Rasasaranee newspaper has to produce large scale production to keep the product low cost. Because of limitation of the market this strategy is not suitable for Rasasaranee newspaper.

Broad differentiation strategy meets high quality high price method to differentiate their products from its competitors. People buy products for premium price. For the Rasasaranee newspaper this strategy is not suitable because this strategy suggests selling the products to high price. If MMN adapt this strategy their existing customers might not buy the newspaper at a higher price. Therefore Rasasaranee newspaper will lose their market share.

Low cost high quality method used in best cost provider strategy. Even though this strategy gives more value to the customer this strategy is not suitable for the Rasasaranee newspaper. Reasons are MMN organization is not a large corporation and it has some financial problem and skill labor problems.

Focus strategy for lower cost in brand position concentrate on lower cost and lower quality. Even though low cost is an advantage for customers, low quality cause build up negative attitude towards the product. So this strategy also is not suitable for Rasasaranee newspaper.

The best and most suitable branding strategy for MMN organization Rasasaranee newspaper is focus strategy based on differentiation. This strategy is targeted for any niche market. Rasasaranee newspaper segmented to younger and older women and targeting strategy is niche marketing targeting strategy. Designing the Rasasaranee newspaper to meet customers’ taste and demand using this positioning strategy against their competitor the Rasasaranee newspaper can gain more customers and high market share.

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Brand equity is based on the idea that a brand has a value greater than sum of its tangible assets. Create and maintain brand equity can provide for increase profitability, the ability to charge premium prices.

Most of urban cities consumers tend to use internet technologies frequently. Join for the social networks; buy products through online, read articles through online. Therefore using the internet marketing MMN can increase brand equity by advertising on social networks such as Facebook and MySpace and posting food related posts on twitter. Start a blog also the one of fastest growing ways to increase brand equity.

Join MMN with current customers’ help to increase MMN brands’ equity. Specially focus on intermediaries help to advertise MMN brands to potential customers. Use the contests are great way to get the customer more attention on MMN brands. And also develop MMN currently conducting programs such as sponsoring to events, exhibitions and also showing their magazine on TV Derana, ITN channels while telecasting food related programs to increase the brand equity.

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6. Reference

(n.d.). Retrieved from MyMagneticBlog: http://www.mymagneticblog.com

chernatony, l. d. (n.d.). From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation.

PESTEEL Analysis of Macro Environment. (n.d.). Retrieved from OUP: http://www.oup.com

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