Marketing Management For Water Fishery Resources: A Case Study Of Tassal

Marketing goal and objectives

Discuss about the Marketing Management for Water Fishery Resources.

The sustainable exploration of open water fishery resources has received a greater priority across the globe. The global fish production has also grown in the last five decades. Therefore, a potential marketing strategy is required to bring greater profitability of the business. In the words of Desantos et al. (2010), adjustments in the production schedule and the marketing activities can significantly increase the profitability of the business. It has been identified that when adequate marketing is included in the salmon business, the sales volume increases. Eventually, the brand becomes active, in meeting its sustainability (Stormoen et al. 2012). A marketing strategy is a fundamental goal, which increases the sales volume and sustainable competitive advantageConsidering the fact, the current study evaluates the marketing goals and objectives of an Atlantic salmon producer Tassal. At the outset of the study, marketing goals and targets have been discussed by the researcher. Gradually, specific marketing strategies have also been determined by identifying a primary target market and the marketing mix. The input controls, process control, output control of the Tassal have been evaluated, ending with signifying the marketing audits of the current brand. The study ends with a potential conclusion.

Marketing goal and objectives

The purpose of the current marketing plan is to support the current business plan of Tassal, in achieving its long-term targets and objectives. It has been identified that the major advantage of Tassal brand is its operation in the domestic market (www.tassal.com.au, 2016). As a consequence, the firm experiences higher profitability and revenue in the local salmon market. In this context, Desantos et al. (2010) stated that the marketing approach and the unique product offerings had enabled the firm building a strong identity in the Australian Salmon market. The Tassal company’s marketing goal is “Building Tassal a strong brand” in the domestic market.

The brands Tassal has focused on interruption marketing and inbound marketing to improve the overall brand identity in both the national and regional market. Supporting to this fact, Fava Neves (2007) stated that the marketing objectives of Tassal are to increase the salmon awareness and consumption in Australia. The marketing campaign also includes highlighting the freshness, healthiness and the versatility of Tasmanian-grown Atlantic salmon. In this regards, Gerber et al. (2012) also stated that the marketing campaign for the brand is aimed to communicate the endless process that salmon can be used and how much the food contents are simple to digest.

Specific marketing strategies

The marketing objectives of the brand are as follows:

To focus on two primary domestic markets such as wholesale and retail. This strategy is specific and measurable as well. On the other hand, penetrating on the international market could be another particular agenda for the brand Tassal.

To create a new marketing plan facilitating both the brand and the customers. Gibson (2014) stated that providing greater discounts for regular customers and other discount coupons can be considered nother achievable and realistic marketing plan of Tassal. On the contrary, cash back offers against a particular purchase can also be a potential agenda for the brand to penetrate a wider market range.

To drive a potential earnings growth from the salmon in the Australian market. Supporting to this fact, He et al. (2011) stated that Tassal generates both total dollar and a dollar per kg of the fish sold at the Australian fish markets. Thus, the current objective can be considered a measurable and achievable as well. However, increasing sales per quarter by 20% can be regarded as the timely and attainable goal for the brand Tassal.

Apart from the existing objectives, the brand Tassal can use the active marketing campaign to drive the sales growth in the domestic wholesale and retail markets. Holds et al. (2008) also stated that along with the national market, Tassal could also focus on growing fish biomass. This strategy could help Tassal managing the cost effectiveness and the margin improvements. This strategy could be a SMART objective, which could bring more sustainability to the salmon fish market. Supporting to this fact, Llewellyn stated that this approach could help Tassal growing faster in its revenues. Eventually, the increased business returns could be reinvested for penetrating the new target mass. On the other hand, Llewellyn (2015) stated that in the wholesale business, Tassal could continue to invest as it could a growing business market and revenue earning scope for the brand Tassal. Therefore, in every corner of Australia, Tassal would have thousands of retail outlets (Stormoen et al. 2012). To improve the business growth, the brand needs to employ discrete marketing activities to capture a large consumer mass across the country. 

Primary target market

The marketing objective of Tassal indicates that the management of the seafood firm wants to capture the major segments of the domestic market and desires to be one of the leading competitors in the processed food market in Mainland Australia and the Tasmania. It has been scrutinised that the firm has taken a foremost determination to increase domestic consumption. According to the opinion of Hossain and Alam (2016), as the domestic market is the foremost target of Tassal seafood company, the management has already started to improve the supply chain strategy. Adding to this, it has been speculated that the most of the target customers of Tassel are the female seafood users between the age of 25-49 years. Considering the view of Llewellyn (2015), most of the target group of customers from the specified region is married and usually prefer to purchase the fish items for the whole family. Thus, it can be stated that the target demographic market of the firm is exclusively justified to improve the market share by maximising the sales volume.

Primary target market

Furthermore, it has been assessed that the company, Tassal produces a range of seafood products as per the demands of the target group customers. It has been identified by Wu and Bechtel (2008) that the packaging system of the processed food items of Tassal is more informative to draw the attention of the customers. Adding to this, the chosen firm provides a healthy seafood product for keeping the good health value of the target group of customers. On the other hand, Llewellyn (2015) argued that selling of seafood for the purpose of breakfast with the salmon fish is the other major initiative of the firm that would help the firm to uphold a sustainable market position in the target market area. Hence, it could be inferred that Tassal focused on its marketing campaign to formulate a potential brand image by driving the sales margin in its core domestic market segment.

Product

The main product of the firm is Tasmanian Salmon to attract the majority of the customers. As per the view of Stormoen et al. (2012), Tassal strongly supports the protection of the Tasmanian Salmon industry and the workers for continuing the growth process. The Atlantic Salmon is the other main products of the firm which is mostly purchased by the shoppers. Hence, the scholars suggest that focusing on the Salmon fish foods would be the best strategic option for the economic growth and brand sustainability of Tassal (Llewellyn, 2015).

Considering the opinion of Kim (2014), to promote the products successfully, the brand would need to balance the supply chain process both for the domestic wholesale and the retail sales channel. In order to attain the concentration of the target market, Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon Portions and the Tasmanian whole Atlantic salmon could be the finest option for the management of the Tassal.

Price

The moderate price range is the key component of the Tassal to make a sustainable position in the domestic market (Kim, 2014). But recently it has been notified that due to some financial issues the firm has increased its pricing scheme to attract the premium group of customers. According to the view of Hossain and Alam (2016), the increased pricing issues can be the significant reason to hamper the customer base. The core market domestic revenue was slightly down by 2% in the previous year (www.tassal.com.au, 2016). Thus, it is suggested to the marketing team of the chosen seafood firm to construct an affordable pricing strategy to preserve the competitive advantage.

The marketing mix

Place

Tassal is one of the benchmarked seafood company in the market of the international food process firm. According to the opinion of Desantos et al. (2010), to uphold a sustainable position in the market, it would be better to target the domestic market segment.  Hence, the target market of the food market in Mainland Australia and the Tasmania would be the best place to maximise the sales volume.

Promotion

Considering the opinion of Goi (2009), the promotional activity of the firm can be the TV, or street side hoarding to grab the attention of the customers. The proper use of commercial medium is the best opportunity for the food company for organising a successful promotional activity in order to promote the processed food products (Kim, 2014). In this present context, Tassal could choose the small food selling company in the domestic market to promote the process food items with an informative packaging system.

Implementation of tactical marketing activities

Steps	Person / Responsible department	Rational	Control mechanism
Market research	R&D (research and development) department	To understand the current market demand regarding the processed fish products	The primary data and the authenticity of the information would be re-verified by the scrutiny research department.
Data analysis	Research scrutiny department	To determine the authenticity of the research	The primary data would be triangulated with the secondary information for the data authenticity purpose
Launching the marketing campaign	Marketing department	To create awareness regarding the new or existing products. Encouraging the brand recall option	The event campaign design would be examined by the marketing manager, and the rectified design would be passed over to the directors for the final decision.

Input controls

Additional financial resources

The management of Tassal might plan to invest in the recurring budget. The budget would be planned for the tenure of the next six months. For the print media, the management has planned to invest an amount of $2000 within the interval period of 3 months. Thus, the total amount sums up to $6000. In the social networking sites, Tassal would invest $3000, and a total amount of $ 20,000 would spent on TV commercial ads. Thus, the total budget sums up to  $29,000.

Additional capital expenditure

The management of the enterprise has planned to invest a total amount of $80,000 for the tenure of next six months for its marketing actions. The investment would include the R&D actions, product development measures, an enhancement in the internal resources and ATL (Above the Line) and BTL (Below the Line) marketing actions.

Additional research and development expenditures 

For the next six months, the management of Tassal needs to invest at least $35, 000 in its R&D activities.

Employee recruitment and selection

At least 2 R&D experts are required being recruited to understand the potency of Huon’s product lines. Moreover, the one PR (Public Relation) professionals required being hired especially to conduct the ATL activities.

Employee training programs

The production department required training to initiate a better food processing option (Noe, 2010). The marketing department also requires adequate training to regulate the food packaging action to make the products catchy.

Employee manpower allocations

The PR expert would be allocated for the content designing action and engaging the advertising firms for further negotiations. The finance department would be responsible for re-modifying the further product price range. A control unit would be placed between every station of the production channel, and a supervisor would be placed for scrutinising the disttribution system.

Management focused controls

The management of the organisation needs to increase its participating style and verify the marketing plans designed by the marketing departments. The department would frame up the ATL and BTL designs and the pass on to the marketing managers. The manager would provide its input in the layout and pass on to the management for further inputs.

Employee focussed controls

The team leader needs to understand the potential of the employees and allocate the job responsibilities as per the individual specialisation. According to Ganesh (2016), every team members require being involved in the new project. A particular business-is driven reward strategy needs to be incorporated for the employees that engage more and performs well in the project.

Organisational controls

The CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) executive needs to be placed on the corporate website, where the potential clients can easily get the product and business related information via a direct live chat with the CRM executive (Shumanovand Ewing, 2007). Moreover, the commercial advertisement is the most important medium to increase thebrand recall option.

The current price margin of Tassal’s product lines is comparatively high, which enforced the brand to experience a loss of 2%. Therefore, the finance department of the enterprise requires being re-formulating the budget estimation. The price ranges of Huon’ products are relatively lesser. Therefore, there would be a higher chance for the brand to experience a high switch over ratio.

Moreover, Tassal needs to improve the supervising action in the distribution system. The supply chain system of the enterprise is considerably poor, which decreases the availability of its product lines in the targeted stores. According to Bozarthand Handfield (2012), the ineffective product handling process increases the perishable options of Tassal’s products. Therefore, a supervisor needs to be recruited to a supervisor to scrutinise the distribution process. 

The marketing event venue would be examined by the marketing managers, and the final verification would be done by the management of Tassal.

According to Baker (2008), the management needs to monitor the marketing activities base on the time based and the profit based frameworks. Herein, the management has planned to incorporate the future initiative for the next six months. Therefore, the productivity of the marketing channels would measure within the time frame of 6 months.

Forming an audit team within the organisation would be essential. Where, a chartered accounted needs to be recruited along with a marketing expert, a PR professional and the expert from the advertising agency. The particular unit would be responsible for the marketing audit process.

Conclusion

The overall study indicates that the marketing objective for the Tassal needs to be modified. A large scale of fish biomass production could generate economies of scale for the brand. Thus, managing higher revenue could become an easy task for the brand Tassal. Also, the number of retail outlets also needs to be increased to enhance the overall growth potential of the brand.Adding to this, the basic target of the domestic market segment to enhance the market share would help the firm for improving its competitive advantage. Therefore, it could be inferred that the propensity of the specific business is emergting both in the domestic and the international market. 

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