Developing A Media Plan For Wesfarmers

Profiling/selecting target market

Wesfarmers Limited was established in 1914 and from then, it has been grown as one of the largest Australian companies. Company is headquartered in Perth, Western Australia and along with the retail industry; organization is active in other industries like chemicals, fertilisers, industrial and safety products, coal mining, etc. In 2016, Wesfarmers overtook Woolworths and BHP Billiton in terms of revenues. Organization is the largest private employer in Australia and with approximately 223,000 employees; organization has a wide, talented and skilled workforce. With huge number of employees, organization has set up its effective presence in different industries as well as in the international market. With the objective of gaining competitive advantage as well as for enhancing the demand for their products and services in the target market, organization has decided to launch a new media plan in order to communicate the organizational messages in an effective manner to its potential and existing customer segments and that too at lower cost. With the help of this media plan, organization would easily be able to attain its desired goals and objectives and appropriate media tools will be selected on the basis of business requirements and market conditions (Wesfarmers Limited, 2018).

Wesfarmers is primarily engaged in retailing industry and with regards to this; organization has expanded its product and service offering in order to satisfy target audience’s demands and wants. With the objective of gaining positive outcomes, it has been reviewed that Wesfarmers is very active in conducting market research analysis in order to identify the demands and wants of their customers. Organization has a huge product offering and with regards to this, they target almost every customer segment with the objective of enhancing their customer base as well as for the objective of enhancing its revenues and sales.

Wesfarmers perform in the retail industry with its subsidiary company Coles. Coles is one of the largest retailers in Australia and its primary competitor is Woolworths. Both of these organizations have covered approximately 80% of the overall market area and with regards to this, duopoly type of market conditions have been set in the Australian retail industry. In relevance to the organizational new media, organization will profile their customer segments on the basis of their requirements as well as on the basis of buying behaviour, trends in the market, etc. (Wesfarmers Limited, 2018).

Currently, organization is designing media plan for the Australian region and as Wesfaarmers’ retail stores are located in almost every part of Australia, organization will target each and every customer segment with its new media plan with the objective of enhancing its customer base as well as for the objective of enhancing its market share in the target market.

Customers are segmented on the basis of age, income, sex, religion, etc. in this criterion of segmentation. Wesfarmers’ product offering is huge and they have products and services for all types of customers and with regards to the targeting those customers on the basis of new media plan, organization will segregated them on the basis of their age. For example, old aged people will be targeted through television and newspaper whereas millennials and young age group will be targeted through non-traditional media strategies such as through social media, website, third party website promotion, email marketing, etc. (Campbell, 2017).

Geographic

Brand conscious people falls under this criteria of segmentation. People who prefer to have branded products and services will be targeted on the basis of their requirements and demands. Buying behaviour and customers’ trend of this group of people are separate in comparison to the other market segments. In order to target this group of people, organization will implement social media strategies and email marketing as these strategies will help the organization to target people at individual level.

People who purchase products on the basis of their requirements and after analysing the benefits for purchasing their products fall under behavioural type of segmentation. Apart from this, brand loyal people also major part of this segmentation group. In order to retain the brand loyal people and to attract the people who purchase products after determining its benefits, Wesfarmers will use television and internet tools. These tools will help the organization to showcase the primary and secondary features of the particular product amongst the audience through which an effective brand image will be developed. Apart from this, brand loyal people will be retained through loyalty programs as well as on the basis of providing additional benefits to stay with the organization.

Primary objective of new media plan for Wesfarmers is to enhance their customer base by attracting other customer segments. As Wesfarmers is one of the top companies of Australia, thus, their objective is to retain the acquired position in the target market along with the objective of building appropriate brand image amongst the target audience. Company will target all segments of the customers as their product offering is enough to fulfil every customer’s demands and wants. With regards to the utilisation of media tools, organization would easily be able to enhance its performance because organizational reachability will be increased (Sutton-Brady, Kamvounias & taylor, 2015).

Before introduction of internet and technology, organization was used to use traditional forms of marketing and promotion in order to promote their products and services. The major objectives behind using traditional or non-traditional marketing tools is to generate awareness amongst the target audience, developing customers’ interest in the organization and to fulfil their requirements through which organization could be able to attain its desired goals and objectives. Traditional forms of marketing were the only option till early 1990s but after that period, new era of marketing and advertisement has been originated with the introduction of internet. Today, companies prefer to adopt internet marketing over traditional forms of marketing because reachability is very high in internet marketing and promotion along with low cost. Once advertisement is posted over internet platforms, it could be easily be amended but if once advertisement is printed, it cannot be amended easily. Cost of promotion is also low in internet market along with this, customers could be targeted along with providing them detailed information regarding the benefits and unique features of the products and services.   

Apart from this, there is a common objective behind adaptation of any new strategy i.e. enhancing organizational performance, enhancing profitability and to attain competitive advantage in the marketplace. With regards to the functionalities of Wesfarmers, objectives in relevance with media plan are enhancing the demand for their products and services, enhancing footfall of consumers in their stores in comparison to the footfall of consumers at competitors’ stores. Wesfarmers is parent company of Coles and their major competitors are Aldi, Woolworths, etc. which affect their performance. Attaining competitive advantage is another primary objective for Wesfarmers along with overtaking market share of its closest competitor i.e. Woolworths. Organization is engaged in various other activities like coal mining, chemical and fertilisers industry, etc. New media plan will also be a useful and effective technique to increase their overall revenues which is one of the common objectives of adaptation of any strategy (Zakaria, Rahman, Othman, Yunus, Dzulkipli & Osman, 2014).

Demographic

Following are another set of media objectives:

• Reach: With the new media plan, organization will try to reach to large number of target audience.
• Frequency:Media tools are essential for the objective of enhancing its performance and with regards to this, it is necessary to develop picture of the brand amongst the target customer’s mind-set. The more times, a person will be exposed to advertisement, the more demand for the particular will be enhanced.  
• Media impact: Impact of media is high and in order to create positive impact over target and potential customers, it is required to select appropriate channel along with an effective message so that only positive impact could be created amongst the target audiences. There should be no difference between the portrayed image of the product in the advertisement and in the actual performance of the product because if there will be difference, it will ultimately affects the demand of the products and performance of the organization.

Mainly media has been categorised into four sections i.e. print media, electronic media, social media and classical media and Below-the-Line media. Companies use these categories on the basis of their requirement as well as on the basis market conditions, consumer’s demands, their preferences, buying behaviour, etc. Every category of media has its own significance and the role of every media category is essential for the organization to attain its desired goals and objectives.

Print media: Newspapers and magazines are the main elements of print media. Companies uses this category of media for the objective of target their target customers (Chen, Chen, Fan & Chen, 2015). In relation to newspapers and magazines, organizations could not promote their products and services for long run and the impact of these platforms are also very weak because these are active for short time period. Although, the new media plan of Wesfarmers will focus over print media platforms but much focus will be on other categories as these are more effective, result oriented and effective for the objective of gaining desired goals and objectives (Ruiz-Pava & Forero-Pineda, 2018).

Electronic media: Electronic media includes television and radio. In this busy schedule world, impact of electronic media is also weak because people cannot operate their TVs regularly and with regards to this, Wesfarmers will not much invest in these platforms.

Social media: This is the trending category in advertisement and promotion market. Most of the organizations have adopted social media platforms in order to promote their products and services due to its high reachability and high impact. In addition to this, organizations could promote their products at low cost in comparison to other platforms of advertisement and marketing. Internet has brought drastic change in the functionalities of organization and the users of social media are increasing across the globe rapidly. Thus, social media platforms will be the major part of Wesfarmers’ new media plan.

Classical media: Theatre, books, billboards, posters, handbills, banners, pamphlets, etc. are the major elements of classical media. These platforms are also effective if organization is promoting its products at domestic level because international promotion with these platforms is bit difficult as well as bit costly. Although, Wesfarmers’ new media plan will also focus over classical media tools for the objective of developing brand image amongst the target audience’s mind-sets’ (Strobl, Bauer & Matzler, 2018).

These categories are very broad and vast and every category consist variety of media vehicles through which organization could easily uplift its performance along with the attainment of desired goals and objectives. Following media vehicles will be used for the promotion of organizational products and services along with targeting its potential customers:

• Audio: Audio vehicles consist of radio and with regards to this; organization will promote their products and services in the domestic market to reach its potential and existing customers.
• Television: Television will be another media vehicle for targeting local public and amongst them, major customer segments will be the households and old aged people.
• Print:Magazines, newspapers and pamphlets are major elements of print medium which will mainly be used for targeting 24-65 aged group people as they are more interested in reading newspaper.
• Digital publications: News site, blogs and third party website promotion will be used for the objective of promoting products and services (McCann & Barlow, 2015).
• Social media & mobile applications: Social media websites and mobile applications are the major sources of advertisement and promotion. These are the most trending and advanced methods of promotion and advertisement and with the help of these mediums, organization would easily be able to attain its desired goals and objectives.
• Events: This is another effective platform which will be used in the media plan of Wesfarmers. Sponsorship of events is the trending measure of promotion and with the help of event promotion; organization would be able to match up with its desired targets and in terms of attaining competitive advantage (Dixon, Martinez & Martin, 2015).  

Recommendations and Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that Wesfarmers is one of the big conglomerate of Australia and with its vast operations; organization has acquired the leading position in the Australian retail industry. In order to enhance their performance as well as to attain its desired goals in terms of brand promotion, enhancing brand awareness and developing brand loyalty amongst the target audience, it is required to boost up the advertisement and promotional strategies of the organization. IN relevance with this, regular updates in the media strategies are required along with analysing the market conditions and competitive environment of the retail industry. Social media platforms are the trending measures through which organization could easily promote its products and services at low cost in comparison to the other measures of promotion and advertisement. Thus, it is recommended to the organization to be super active on social media platforms along with introducing new programs like loyalty programs, reward points and other benefits for the existing customers for the purpose of retaining them.

It can be concluded that every organization seeks for improvement in its performance and to enhance the performance, they adopt unique and innovative measures. Wesfarmers was founded in 1914 and today, it is the largest company across the Australia in terms of revenues and the major reason behind their success, growth and development are the strategies adopted by them i.e. consistent learning, sustained growth and overall development. With the help of these strategies, organization has been able to fulfil its target customer’s needs and wants along with the objective of retaining its leading position in the target market.

References 

Campbell, J. (2017). Insights from the company monitor: Wesfarmers. Equity, 31(8), 16.

Chen, H., Chen, X., Fan, L., & Chen, C. (2015). Classified security protection evaluation for vehicle information system. In Cyber Security of Smart Cities, Industrial Control System and Communications (SSIC), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Dixon, A. W., Martinez, J. M., & Martin, C. L. (2015). Employing social media as a marketing strategy in college sport: an examination of perceived effectiveness in accomplishing organizational objectives. International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, 12(2), 97-113.

McCann, M., & Barlow, A. (2015). Use and measurement of social media for SMEs. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 22(2), 273-287.

Ruiz-Pava, G., & Forero-Pineda, C. (2018). Internal and external search strategies of innovative firms: the role of the target market. Journal of Knowledge Management. 17(1), 15-32.

Strobl, A., Bauer, F., & Matzler, K. (2018). The impact of industry-wide and target market environmental hostility on entrepreneurial leadership in mergers and acquisitions. Journal of World Business. 25(3), 225-230.

Sutton-Brady, C., Kamvounias, P., & Taylor, T. (2015). A model of supplier–retailer power asymmetry in the Australian retail industry. Industrial marketing management, 51, 122-130.

Wesfarmers Limited. (2018). Coles. Retrieved from: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/our-businesses/coles.

Wesfarmers Limited. (2018). Who We Are. Retrieved from: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/who-we-are/who-we-are.

Zakaria, I., Rahman, B. A., Othman, A. K., Yunus, N. A. M., Dzulkipli, M. R., & Osman, M. A. F. (2014). The relationship between loyalty program, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in retail industry: A case study. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 129(2), 23-30.

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