Marketing Management For Mix Marketing Industry Facts

Introduction to Australian wools

Describe about the Marketing Management for Mix Marketing Industry Facts.

Expecting to produce 355 million kilograms of wool valued to be nearly 2 billion dollars (in 2011-2012), wool production has been the massive economic booming factor for Australia. Many Australian citizens have earned their massive amount of wealth by getting involved in this particular wool business. At the point when Australia was just growing financially, wool was their first greatest item, it was a colossal export industry for them. Because of wool farming their economy grew like anything, and this particular business became more grounded rapidly. Wool business in Western Australia (WA) had a gross estimation of $541 million in 2014/15, 53% of the aggregate commitment of the sheep business.in 2011-2012 there were 90 million sheep across Australia, but now it has come down to 14 million sheep, managed by 5250 sheep producers. They are for the most part situated in the farming district of the state creating great, fine Merino wool (Australia, 2016). When the Spanish merino was brought to Australia it was very much suitable for use here, and it really took off and shaped the economy of Australia, merinos for wool production became biggest export industry for Australia. So, the question might arise, why merino out of all? The merinos were in the best shape in the world for fine fabric production, it’s perfectly suited to Australian climate and condition, which makes them have an advantage of producing finely made merino wool fabric.

Now talking about how it was shipped to other countries, previously when production was just taking its rise, the wools used to be sheared at Australia’s farms itself, located at various parts of the country, then the wools were washed for clean product. Then all of those sheared and cleaned wools would be taken to shipping port first then loaded in a vessel and then would take a long journey by ocean all the way to London or other countries where the wools are being sold to. It used to take longer time back then because the ships were not big, and the vessels were also not big. But as the time went by, they now transport it at huge ships and huge containers or other transporting methods which makes it easier for them to export at bulk at a time to other countries.

All of this started when John Macarther and Reverand Samuel Mardsden wanted to begin a new wool endeavor, and that’s why they imported Spanish sheep. But everything didn’t start right away, it took a lot of trial an errors for them and a lot of time for this endeavor to actually succeed. More than 2 million kilos of wools were produced each year before 1840 and the stock market for wools were so much in demand, “One of the most remarkable sights in Sydney is that of the Wool Exchange in full blast. Both buyers and brokers are men of weight and substance and responsibility in the community, but when the auctioneer puts up a lot the buyer’s spring to their feet, wave their catalogues over their heads, and shout their bids frantically at the seller… It is not unusual for 100,000 [pounds’] worth of wool to be put through during an afternoon.’ Sydney Mail, October 16, 1897” (Wales, 2012).

Woolmark

Then in late 1890s the wool business had to face a little bit of downfall in economy due to the federation drought. Because of this situation the numbers of sheep declined by half a number than what they had before, not only federation drought but world war 1 and world war 2 had a very negative impact on this overall wool business of Australia. Nevertheless, after some time (during 1950s) the wool business somehow managed to climb up the stairs again, not anywhere like they used to before, as many of them have given more focus to produce meat, but the merino is still acknowledged as a luxury item with very high quality and its demand in the textile industries and fashion industries is quite high.

To give a brief introduction about the brand Woolmark, it is basically a trade mark owned by AWI i.e. Australian Wool Innovation Limited. AWI licenses this trademark to be utilized by subsidiary merchants on their items as an affirmation that the item complies with an arrangement of guidelines laid by the association. What this assures is that, all the products that is marked by this trademark will be of 100% pure brand new wool. This brand is globally famous and well recognized for its textile quality fiber brand. As one of the world’s most notable brands the Woolmark logo has been connected to more than 5 billion items since the making of the first stamp in 1964, consumers can be guaranteed that the items which convey the imprint have been thoroughly tried and honored with a sign of independent quality endorsement (Woolmark, n.d.).

There are various sub-brands of Woolmark that focuses on variety of products. The list of brands and sub-brands are mentioned below:

Woolmark Apparel:

Pure new wool

Sub- brands:

Pure Merino Wool

Cool Wool

Sheepskin

Merino Extra Fine

Australian Merino Wool

Merino Perform

Woolmark Interiors and Apparel Care

Interiors pure new wool

Sub-Brands:

Interiors pure new wool Layer

Interiors pure new wool Filling

Interiors pure new wool filling with pile

Interiors pure new wool pile

Carpets pure new wool pile

Sheepskin pure new wool pile

Apparel Care

Woolmark Blend Apparel

Wool Rich Blend

Sub- brands:

Cool Wool

Merino Perform

Woolmark Blend Interiors

Interiors Wool Rich Blend

Interiors Wool Rich Blend layer

Interiors Wool Rich Blend Filling

Interiors Wool Rich Blend Filling with Pile

Interiors Wool Rich Blend Pile

Carpets Wool Rich Blend Pile

Target Market

Wool Blend Apparel

Wool Blend Performance

As of now, we have enough knowledge or information about the Australian wool and also Woolmark. So, we can easily evaluate that Woolmark is not trying to segment or specify a certain group of population of a specific country or place. As it is a global brand, which has already set a high brand image, its target market is very wide and is trying to utilize mass communication. Australia supplies its wool to a very large market. And as it is wool, the main area which wool mark obviously will focus on is fashion and textile industries all over the world. Many huge designers and many huge clothing manufacturers claim Woolmark certified wools to produce their final products and are highly satisfied with their end product, knowing that the fabric is 100% pure wool and will ultimately satisfy their individual targeted customers bringing brand loyalty towards their brand along with success of that specific brand.

We can say that Woolmark is a “B 2 B” or business to business model. B 2 B is a marketing term named for business who produce and deliver or supply to another business for their personal manufacturing, rather than supplying directly to the end consumers (Rouse, 2014).Similarly, Woolmark Provides its services or products to many retailers and manufacturers all over the world to produce their product. There are various Woolmark brands and each brand has its own target market that it has set, and they process accordingly so that the right message is conveyed to the right customers. Here we can take an example of “Cool Wool” brand of Woolmark Cool Wool fabrics have the unique ability to help keep the wearer warm in cold temperatures and cool and fresh in warmer climates thanks to some of the fiber’s natural benefits – such as breathability and insulating capacity (Woolmark, n.d.). Cool wool can be utilized only if the designer or manufacturer buy it form a licensed Woolmark manufacturer or producer or are licensed themselves. With Cool Wool’s characteristics and features of being a wool that does not produce too much heat but rather is very lightweight, thanks to the advanced technologies used to produce them, and is great for countries who want to wear wool fabric clothes but eventually cant because of the humidity of their country. So, this brand has targeted countries having a humid temperature such as India (Raymond). But having a quality of a fabric that many people want to own in their closet, they have researched and found out that countries such as China, Japan, UK, Turkey etc. has a huge demand on Cool Wool, so they stated providing it to many Woolmark licensed brands such as Alfred Brown, Bower Roebuck, Dormeuil etc. of UK, Kozuka Keori Co Ltd, Kurabo Industries Ltd, Miyuki Keori Co Ltd, Nakaden Keori Co Ltd etc. of Japan and many others.

From this we can see that Woolmark has a very structured and a very standard way of processing and functioning as a whole. Wool being itself a very luxurious fabric, and along with its standardized functioning, providing to a very high end market, its brand positioning is also likewise very inclined. People perceive this brand to be a very high quality and luxurious product that is costly and can be bought by only high end consumers. This perception about this particular brand has given a huge hype towards this brand, along with improvement in its brand image, which has helped to maintain its brand position in the market, as this brand stands out from various other wool competitors. Now talking about positioning mapping, this brand or company does have very high quality products and is supported by prices that ranges from middle end to high end. But even if it offers in this pricing structure, it assures that the customers will be satisfied with its products because of its 100% pure animal fiber.

“Business is a risk reward proposition. (Bain, n.d.)” any business without any risk is considered to be a huge myth. When people take a chance to start a new endeavor, there is high chance of facing any kind of uncertainties and risks, be it because of any national or international issues. Likewise Woolmark or the wool industry of Australia also had to face or is still facing certain ups and downs during this whole course.

There is two environmental forces that could affect a business or a company, they are, micro environmental forces and macro environmental forces .These two environmental forces, might cause the company to fluctuate it is performance standard. Micro environmental forces as suggested by its own name, are the force which is small at nature, but can bring huge impact to the company. These kind of forces can be managed by the particular administration of the business, for instance: public, competitors, customers, suppliers, intermediaries, workers and their unions (Chand, n.d.). Whereas Macro environmental forces are those which are quite the opposite of micro environmental forces i.e. the forces which has a very huge impact on the business, or something that affects in a broader or regional level, factors such as, unemployment, inflation, investments, savings etc. (Reference, n.d.)

Talking about the Australian wool industries, there were various micro and macro factors that affected its wool business. In early times during mid-1890s, when the wool business was at its peak, it suddenly had to face low wool prices because of the Federation drought, then the quantity of sheep also had a huge downfall almost to half of the sheep than it was before. But it slowly recovered and came past this drought situation, then people realized that people need more knowledge and education about wools in order for this sector to succeed, grow and sustain at the same time, so they established various institutes to make people aware about the wool producing, such as “The Sydney Wool Institute”. The 2 world wars, World War I and World War II also had a very huge negative effect in labor, demand and prices resulting in economic downfall of the business.

Now talking about more recent happenings, China is a country that imports a huge quantity of Australian wools i.e. tentatively about eighty percent of its production, and it is the most important or vital body for Australia’s multi-billionaire wool business. But recently Australian woolgrowers had a very hard time to keep up with its very successful wool export business because of the very slow economy of China. The economy started to drop and even many people started to quit this industry and join other, because difficulty in surviving in this sector. So, they turned to Vietnam to solve their problem, but Vietnam agreed to act as a manufacturing hub only. Although, the company has managed to maintain its business steadily, the wool production through the times has been decreasing vastly because of the introduction of new competitive fibers in the market.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ PETA’s Anti wool campaign to stop animal cruelty has also brought huge downfall on Australia’s wool industry as people prefer the products which do not harm animals , and many retailers have agreed to boycott these wool products completely to adjust in the current market scenario (Telegraph, 2007).          

Woolmark is a Brand that has luxury and comfort labeled on it. It is a brand that assures its customers to provide 100% pure merino wool. People’s perception towards this is brand is quite obvious i.e. high end brand that provides you a luxury feeling and hopefully full satisfaction. But Woolmark has not only set its standard through its comfortable fabric, but now it has done some pilot researches and has proved a very groundbreaking medical condition. Many people’s skin are very sensitive towards various stuffs, and fabric also plays a huge role in causing certain allergies or discomfort on those types of sensitive skins. And while doing a pilot research on whether the Woolmark products would cause any harm to these kinds of skins, the results were astonishing, a girl had a problem with other bra brands and had trouble wearing them for 25 years but after wearing a Wool mark’s product she was amused to feel comfortable in it. Not only with comfort  factor but they also did a research on itching inflammation patients for about 30 days and those patients are so much satisfied with the garment that they now are completely loyal to this brand (Woolmark, n.d.).So because of these factors, the brand perception towards Woolmark is very much positive as it satisfies customers with its assured pure wool, luxurious feeling and now even people with sensitive skin can wear whatever they want.

But every business has some challenges to face, and in this case are the people who support animal’s rights. There are many people who do not support on products that torture animals for their satisfaction and comfort. Similarly, many people around the world do not use woolen based products believing that animals have the same right as human being does and they do not deserve to be treated harshly. So definitely, people who boycott wool brands have a completely different perception towards Woolmark.

Woolmark is a very big brand, and it is already well established in the global market, but in order for any company to survive in today’s dynamic environment, the customers must be continuously be made aware about the brand existence, so that they would not think of purchasing it’ competitors’ products. As Woolmark is a large scale company, it can afford to do large scale advertisements and campaigns featuring popular faces, and has been doing so for very long time to capture the audience’s attention

Marketing mix is a very essential tool (7 Ps) for any businesses to recognize and determine what their brand has to offer to its target market, in order to derive customer value with satisfaction (Academy, n.d.). Woolmark has done integrated marketing to aware about its product to the global market consumers. They have utilized various platforms to let the buyers know about its offerings, service and products. Their product and price are well structured and well thought according to the demand of its customers, they have a proper shipping and delivering of their wools to its importers, and they have successfully used various advertisement and promotional platforms for brand awareness.

They started a Woolmark prize, which is now a very honoring award for any designer, where many huge designers compete against one another to win this prize for best design using the wools of Woolmark. This is a very clever way to maintain brand loyalty of the customers, and expose this brand to the people who didn’t have a clue about it.

As Woolmark is a well-established brand with its huge success world-wide there doesn’t seem to be a huge challenge that they have to face as of now. But if we view for sustainability, this brand certainly has to work on various areas. People are becoming more and more conscious of what they eat to what they wear now days, many people are starting to boycott any products that harms animals to produce. And to meet the customers’ demands huge retailer shop will have no choice but to boycott wool products as well, which will result to declination in the demand of Woolmark products.

So in order to convince those kind of consumers, what Woolmark could do is release a animal-friendly campaign, where they could display that the wool of sheep are sheared without harming them, so that the consumers will know how the wool business is actually done, and can also be done where sheep are not harmed at all. If they will be successful in convincing those customers then obviously the demand will rapidly increase resulting in increase in revenue, and overall success.

References

Academy, P., n.d. Marketing Theories – The Marketing Mix – From 4 P’s to 7 P’s. [Online]
Available at: https://www.professionalacademy.com/blogs-and-advice/marketing-theories—the-marketing-mix—from-4-p-s-to-7-p-s

Australia, G. o. W., 2016. Department of agriculture and food, Wool Industry Facts. [Online]
Available at: https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/agricultural-exports/wool-industry-facts

Bain, B., n.d. [Online]
Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2012/10/26/bill-bain-breaks-his-silence/

Chand, S., n.d. Micro Environment of Business: 6 Factors of Micro Environment of Business. [Online]
Available at: https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/business/micro-environment-of-business-6-factors-of-micro-environment-of-business/23370/

fiber2fashion, n.d. Australian Wool Innovation limited. [Online]
Available at: https://www.fibre2fashion.com/face2face/printinterview.asp?interviewid=77

Reference, n.d. What are macroeconomic factors?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.reference.com/world-view/macroeconomic-factors-254c98e9b955747c

Rouse, M., 2014. B2B (business-to-business). [Online]
Available at: https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/B2B

Telegraph, T. D., 2007. Pink backs down on mulesing. [Online]
Available at: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/pink-backs-down-on-mulesing/story-e6freuzi-1111112845433

Wales, S. L. N. S., 2012. Australian Wool. [Online]
Available at: https://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/history_nation/agriculture/produce/wool/

Woolmark, n.d. Changing perceptions of wool. [Online]
Available at: https://www.woolmark.com/news-events/news/changing-perceptions-of-wool-/

Woolmark, n.d. Cool Wool. [Online]
Available at: https://www.woolmark.com/inspiration/marketing-platforms/cool-wool/

Woolmark, n.d. Wool Mark brands, mark of excellence. [Online]
Available at: https://www.woolmark.com/brands/