A. Analyze the strategic situation facing the firm. For example, you should make references to Porter’s
strategic forces.
B. Propose a marketing strategy that can create value for the firm given your market analysis in part A.
Your strategy needs to include the failowing:
Target market
Marketing message
Pricing
Marketing and distribution channels
Mechanism for customer feedback
C. lilustrate the strategic situation facing the firm (before your marketing plan) and the impact of your
tecommendations. In other words, you should have more than one illustration to show the different options
facing the firm, or illustrate the situation before/after implementing your proposed strategy. Discuss your
analysis and use them to support your marketing strategy in B.
D. Provide specific examples to support your marketing proposal. Creativity is all-important, but it also must
be realistic and defensible for top-level decision-makers. It is suggested that your specific marketing
strategy suggestions and examples should incorporate at least three of the following tools:
Product life cycle (product perspective)
Adoption life cycle (customer perspective) NOTE: 1 and 2 often go together!
BCG Product Matrix (only relevant if the firm has muitiple competing products)
Customer Funnel (business perspective)
Customer Decision process (customer perspective) NOTE: 4 and 5 often go together!
Spider/Radar/Perceptual Map (customer analysis)
Spider/Radar/Perceptual Map (competitor analysis) NOTE: 6 and 7 often go together!
Marketing Channels (distribution of products/services)
Communication Channels (different means to reach target customers)
Value Map (customer value perception and pricing)
Big data (econometric analysis)
NOTE: You should choose the tools that are most relevant to your strategic situation — not all tools apply
equally to all cases. Of course you are welcome to use more than three tools to make the most persuasive
case. You should make use of appropriate charts, graphs, and other numerical analysis whenever possible.
Early on in your development, you can write a one-page summary of the strategic situation to post and
share with others in this class. This can also be the basis of your oral presentation. It is suggested that you
can think of it as a “Shark Tank” performance.
You can present your analysis orally via a video recording using your smartphone or by some application
such as WebEx and posting it for viewing.
Sample Solution
