The report provides an insight into the marketing and communications of Subway. The report commences with a focus on the evolution of marketing with a mention of the marketing and product orientations along with the advantages and disadvantages and finally to identify the orientation adopted by Subway. There is also discussion on the marketing environments with identification of a political and environmental factor that influences the business of the restaurant. There is puts forward the marketing strategies and the marketing mix adopted by Subway. The report also provides a review of the communication campaign undertaken by Subway by watching one of the video campaigns undertaken by the fast food restaurant.
Market orientation represents the philosophy of the company that focuses on the meeting and discovering of the desires and needs of the customers through product mix (Urde, Baumgarth and Merrilees 2013).
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Product Orientation
Product orientation refers to the company philosophy where it can ignore the needs of the customers and focus solely on the effectively building quality product (Eelen, Dewitte and Warlop 2013).
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
The mission statement of subway puts forward that for allowing the entrepreneurs in successfully competing in the Fast Food industry across the world through consistent offering of value to the customers, Subways makes sure that the food is not only tastier and nutritious but made as per the customer demands (subway.com 2018). Thus, it is quite visible from the mission statement of the company that Subway follows a market-oriented approach. Subway also takes greater pride in serving the communities and the customers and seeks constant improvement in everything it does.
There are instances that portray Subway’s inclination towards a market-oriented approach. One of the instance remains in the portrayal of the fact that the fast food restaurant tries quite hard in connecting with customers through various social networking platforms like the Twitter and the Facebook along with necessary services for the customers (Lam and Gu 2016). Another instance that acts as a supporting point for adopting a marketing oriented approach lies in the system of ordering. Unlike, the other restaurants, Subway put forwards varied choices for its customers on the menu. Moreover, while placing an order for sub sandwich the customer not only can choose the flavour, bread, quantity of cheese, sauce and vegetables.
Various political factors have a direct impact on the functioning of Subway. One of such factor includes the safety and health guidelines put forward by government of state where the unit of Subway operates (Cavusgil et al. 2014). Campaigns undertaken by government and the semi government in specific areas also have direct impact Subway food chains. Franchises operating in the Muslim country should meet the food restrictions related to the concept of Halaal. On the other hand, the environmental factor influencing business operations and the consumer buying behaviour lies in changing trend of the global environment. The strategies undertaken across the world in dealing with the pollution and in promotion of activities like the recycling had a direct impact on Subway’s business strategies. In other words, the initiatives undertaken by food chains for the promotion of good norms amongst the people in saving food also influences fast food restaurant chain like Subway.
There has been an increase in the number of the units of Subway in not only third world countries but also the developed countries (subway.com 2018). Thus, for maintenance of the quality standards and in generating competition the fast food restaurant should have practical strategies in accordance with the analysis.
Psychographic segmentation finds application in the marketing research as a type of segmentation in marketing that divides the customers into various sub groups depending on the shared psychological characteristics such as the conscious and the subconscious beliefs, priorities of explanation, motivation and prediction of the consumer behaviour(Boone and Kurtz 2013). This type of segmentation applies the behavioural and the social sciences in understanding the process of consumer decision-making process, consumer attitudes, personalities, lifestyle, values and the preferences for communication. Through psychographic segmentation, marketers can easily target the audiences for marketing the products, brands or the services. In other words, this segmentation relates to the cognitive style of the consumers based on patterns of feeling, thinking and perceiving.
Behavioural segmentation is the type of segmentation that divides the whole market into homogeneous and small groups based on the buying behaviour of the customers (Hjort et.al 2013). These includes brand loyalty, usage frequency and the required benefits. This kind of segmentation enables clubbing the people with the similar pattern in buying behaviour who then become a target. Thus, through this type of segmentation companies can not only market but also promote the product in streamlined manner for capturing customers based on their needs.
Geographic segmentation would be most suitable for Subway while segmenting its market (Porter and Heppelmann 2015). This type of segmentation will allow Subway in dividing the target market based on the location aspects for effective tailoring of the marketing efforts. For example, based on the geographic segmentation, the fast food chain can offer halal menu for the Middle Eastern countries, vegetables with the beef menu in India and menu with more sauces for the American. The geographic segmentation can take place based on the city, state, country and region. It can also take place based on the urban, suburban and the rural areas. This type of segmentation is quite effective for fast food chain since it allows in better understanding of the attributes that are mostly location based comprising of the particular target market. Consumers belonging to the varied geographic regions displays variation in the wants, needs and the cultural characteristics that Subway can utilize for specifically targeting better and efficient marketing. This type of segmentation also proves to be cost effective for a company since the marketing efforts focuses on a definite area thereby leading to the avoidance of inefficient spending. Moreover, geographic segmentation also have increased propensity for resonance and thereby prompting a purchase.
The primary product offering of Subway is the sandwich. In addition to sandwich, the fast food restaurant chain offers cookies, snacks, drinks and snacks (subway.com 2018). The goal of this fast food restaurant chain lies in offering quality sandwiches customized as per taste of the customers. There are however three types of Sandwiches which includes classic, premium and favourites. The classic sandwiches include varieties like the spicy Italian, cheese & steak, meatball marinara, chicken teriyaki, crab and seafood and the veggie delight. The favourite sandwiches are those sandwiches containing roasted chicken, roasted beef, turkey breast tuna, chicken slice and turkey breast and only chicken slice. The premium sandwiches on the other hand include the Subway club and the Subway melt. In addition, the customers can make an offering for a foot long sandwich or a meal containing a drink, a sub and a snack.
Subway offers its products at higher price than the competitors do. However, the fast food chain offers quality food in comparison to the competitors especially for the customers’ conscious of calorie intake thereby putting forward a justification of the price offered (subway.com 2018). Besides, in addition to the size and quantity of the food the fast food chain offers more than its competitors do. The differential strategy for pricing along with the value pricing is in accordance with the generation of value in terms of the quality distributed by the outlets of Subway.
The fast food restaurant chain primarily carries out its operations through the various franchises and represents the fastest growing franchises (subway.com 2018). There are close to over 44000 franchises operating across one hundred and twelve territories. The franchises are even located in the offbeat places that acted as the boon for Subway. One can find a Subway outlet in malls, airports, amusement parks, military bases, hospitals and the business centres. The fast food restaurant chain also offers catering services primarily for the office gatherings, business meetings, holiday gathering, birthday parties, field trips and the social gatherings.
Promotion represents one of four basic strategic components of marketing mix. Thus, the role of promotional mix lies in the creation of the synergy with three elements that includes the product, pricing and the place to optimize the customers of the company and the profit potential (Nour and Almahirah 2014). Promotion ensures in bringing together the product strength, availability and the fairness of benefits at specific price. The five primary elements of promotional mix include advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing and personal selling. The tactics and the methods used in the promotional mix generally correlates with objectives of communication. For an established brand, the promotion finally focuses around the promotion of strong benefits and in valuing the targeted customers.
From the video campaign, it is visible that Subway adopted advertising as the element of its promotional mix (Khan 2014). This is because; the fast food restaurant has adopted an audio as well as visual form of the marketing that employed openly sponsored public messages for the promoting or selling a product. The advantages of advertising include:
The disadvantages of advertising include:
The channels used by Subway for successfully increasing the market share include advertisement through television and social media channels like the Facebook and Twitter. In other words, Subway remains extremely active in the social media for not only distributing its advertisements but also connecting with the customer base and in raising awareness (subway.com 2018). The advertisements help the fast food chain in the generation of the secure leads and thereby convince the consumers in indentifying the outlet for the purchase of products. Advertisement also results in sufficient amount of stress for the restaurant chain in putting forward various options for drawing in the interest of the customers.
The key message that Subway wants to puts across is that the fast food restaurant chain wants to increase the market share of the company by close to nineteen percent by the year December 2019 by targeting beyond the young people. These include the health conscious consumers and the kids. To achieve this, the fast food restaurant tries persuading the customers through advertisements in various mediums (subway.com 2018). The advertisements emphasize the ingredients of Sandwich by providing a close up view thereby implying on its nutritious aspects. Through its advertisements, Subway also tries to highlight how it can act as a quick snack option for those who get to work early by portraying day-to-day activities.
The target audience of Subway portrayed in the video campaign describes people within the age group of fifteen to forty years (Pearson 2016). These people are mostly the health conscious people who love spending quality time with the family, friends and the loved ones. People in this age group love to taste and try different varieties of food. The age group that is mostly the youngsters also does not bother about the future but like follow a life defined by challenge, novelty and change.
Attention: The logo of Subway is a combination of two colours, a lighter and a darker shade that increases its visibility in attracting the consumer attention.
Interest: In order to retain the customer attention Subway through its various franchises offers products as per the choice and needs of the consumers
Desire: Subway believes in offering food made fast, is fun to look at, hot, cold, fresh from the oven and has nutritional value.
Attention: Subway also put across various offers like earning points on various purchases thereby encouraging the consumers in making a choice.
Subway should collect feedback on the effectiveness of the video campaign through its mobile app (subway.com 2018). The app encourages the consumers in creating account and become member, search for the nearest locations, place order, pay for a meal along with a creation of a forum for necessary feedback. This will enable making the app more interactive and useful. Through the app, consumers can also check out nutritional facts.
Conclusion:
The report ends by put forward a review on the communications campaign of Subway. There is discussion about the role of promotional mix and the effectiveness of Subway in adopting advertising as a promotional mix along with a mention of the advantages and disadvantages. The report also shows how Subway makes use of social media in increasing its market share. The report puts forward the key message of the video campaign, the target audience and the AIDA marketing theory of Subway.
References:
Boone, L.E. and Kurtz, D.L., 2013. Contemporary marketing. Cengage learning.
Cavusgil, S.T., Knight, G., Riesenberger, J.R., Rammal, H.G. and Rose, E.L., 2014. International business. Pearson Australia.
Eelen, J., Dewitte, S. and Warlop, L., 2013. Situated embodied cognition: Monitoring orientation cues affects product evaluation and choice. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(4), pp.424-433.
Hjort, K., Lantz, B., Ericsson, D. and Gattorna, J., 2013. Customer segmentation based on buying and returning behaviour. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 43(10), pp.852-865.
Khan, M.T., 2014. The concept of’marketing mix’and its elements (a conceptual review paper). International journal of information, business and management, 6(2), p.95.
Lam, J.S.L. and Gu, Y., 2016. A market-oriented approach for intermodal network optimisation meeting cost, time and environmental requirements. International Journal of Production Economics, 171, pp.266-274.
Nour, M.I. and Almahirah, M.S., 2014. The impact of promotional mix elements on consumers purchasing decisions. International Business and management, 8(2), pp.143-151.
Pearson, S., 2016. Building brands directly: creating business value from customer relationships. Springer.
Porter, M.E. and Heppelmann, J.E., 2015. How smart, connected products are transforming companies. Harvard Business Review, 93(10), pp.96-114.
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