Guidelines for Assessment 3: Assignment: Creating, Communicating and Delivering Value

Students are required to upload their assignment into Turnitin (available via moodle) to ensure
originality of the submitted assignment.

Background Reading:
You must read Chapter 9: Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning to understand the process
of STP, before you attempt the assignment. Students relying on slides will find themselves confused.
Spend time reading the chapter and ask your lecturer questions during consultation hours if you are not
clear about any concept. Please do not email to understand theory.
Choosing the soft drink or airline:
This is the most critical step of your assignment. Your product/service must have a clear differentiating
competitive advantage. If your soft drink is ordinary and does not have a feature that makes it unique,
you will find your assignment bland and so will your tutor, same applies for airline. Conduct extensive
research by visiting super markets, malls, or visiting websites (for airlines) and carefully select your soft
drink or airline.
Evidence:
In this assignment, we want you to give evidence to almost every claim you make. For example, if you
say Kelloggs Special K is targeting female consumers who have an active lifestyle, then you should
look for an advertisement that shows a girl in activity consuming Kelloggs Special K. Similarly, if you
claim Dominos differentiates itself in terms of Services then you must find an advertisement that shows
Dominos claiming to be Pizza Delivery Expert with 30 minutes delivery promise to support your claim.
We know this is tough, but this is where excellence lies.
Assignment Sequence:
Your assignment is asking you to identify the target market of your organisation and describe the
positioning and marketing mix created by your organisation to deliver superior value.
Hence, you should follow the following steps. Please use headings followed by paragraphs. You do not
need to create table of content, introduction to report or conclusion. You do not need to write
theory/definitions but you need to apply theory and refer to the relevant terms.
Introduction to the Company:
In this section, you should describe your company, their line of product/services, website, geographical
locations, their target markets (refer to page 258 259 to understand) or anything that gives the tutor
an understanding of the organisation.
Target Market:
You should describe the companys target market using appropriate segmentation variables. For
example, Body Shop mainly caters to adult (age) men and women (gender), who prefer natural products
(benefits sought) and are concerned about environment and animals (psychographic). You should use
relevant variables (read page 246 - 255). To get high grades, you should provide evidence of target
market, using quotations from their website, advertisement or any other form of communication from
the company. You should also include in your discussion, why this target market is significant. Refer to
Evaluating market segments to make your case (page 257 258). Use statistics on target market (if
available) to score maximum marks.
Values Demanded by Target Market:
In this section you will describe what the target market desires in a product/service i.e. soft drink/airline.
This can be listed in bullet points. For example, people who like to eat healthy food but are working/busy
people, determine value (benefits and costs) of a restaurant as following:

Has a convenient location.

Clean surrounding.
Meals containing a variety of fresh vegetables.
Meals that are prepared with less salt.
Meals that are prepared with minimal amount of oil.

Short waiting time when placing order and getting served.

Affordable price.
And so forth [you may add to this list].

Positioning:
In this section, you should describe the position of the product/service in mind of customers relative to
other products. You have to draw a Perceptual map and discuss the position of competitors and the
position of company (or brand) in relation to competitors. The dimensions (X and Y axis) of perceptual
map are two most important attributes for the target market. The dimensions should be opposite e.g.
Healthy/Unhealthy, Expensive/Cheap, High Quality/Low Quality etc. It is encouraged to look for
evidence to support your argument. Read Page 261 264.
Differentiation:
Here you will describe how the soft drink/airline is different from others. Remember from lecture that
products differentiate in terms of product features or image, while services differentiate based on
product, service, personnel or image. Please remember, you are making a case of differentiation here
and not of overall characteristics of product/service. For example, Sensodyne differentiates itself from
other toothpastes claiming No. 1 Dentist Recommended Toothpaste for Sensitive Teeth (you can visit
the website) to portray a superior image. Here you will not discuss other characteristics of Sensodyne.
In differentiation section it is mandatory (compulsory) to provide evidence of marketing communication
promoting the difference e.g. Sensodynes website and ads highlighting this difference. Not all
companies differentiate themselves, and hence it is important to pick your case carefully. Read Page
264 267. You can also include discussion on how the differences promoted meet the criteria of
important, distinctive, superior, communicable, pre-emptive, affordable and profitable.
Marketing Mix:
In marketing mix section, you will describe Product, Price, Place, Promotion (4 Ps for soft drink and
airline) and add on People, Process and Physical Evidence (only for airlines). Keep yourself limited to
the Ps relevant to the target market. Do not lose focus here. For example, if the target market is
teenagers with pimples, and if you are documenting Clinique, then document Clinique, Anti Blemish
range and skip Anti-Aging Range. If you document everything that company offers, it means you lack
understanding of STP.
Product: Describe the levels of product (page 277 - 279). Then describe the characteristics of
product/service. Provide photos to support your documentation. You can include packaging and
branding in this section (page 285 287).
Price: Describe price of product for various offerings. If you find any price adjustments (page 374-380),
then document it with evidence.
Promotion: Collect as many evidence for communication e.g. Facebook page, website, brochures,
advertisement.
Place: Identify the stores where the product is sold. Identify the location of the airline offices and
branches (if multiple).
People, Process, Physical Evidence: Read Page 74. Identify profile of airline staff, the enquiry and
booking process and physical aspect of airline that are put in place to communicate quality.

Additional instructions;
Word limit: 1500 words
Weighting/Value: 15%
Presentation requirements:
Page Margin: 1 inch (25 mm) on each side
Line spacing: Single
Font: Times New Roman, Size: 12