Week-3 Walmart Case Study Khanjanben Patel King graduate school
Week-3
Walmart Case Study
Khanjanben Patel
King graduate school, Monroe college
MG 660 Strategic marketing
September 30, 2018
Abstract
Making a marketing decision in a fast-changing world is an art and science. It is a holistic approach. Marketers can make any decision based on having enough marketing information like internal records, analyzing surrounding market environment, technological environment, economical environment and sociocultural environment. Understanding the marketing environment can help marketers to identify marketing opportunities and forecasting market demand. Walmart is one of the biggest retailer company in the world. Since 1961 Walmart has gone through many marketing campaigns to maintain position in the competitive retail market. Walmart has applied many different marketing strategies to be succeed. Walmart had faced down fall in retail market in mid 2000Sv but after applying different marketing strategies and examining market demand Walmart gained its position in retail market again.
Walmart Case Study
Evaluate the evolution of Walmart’s marketing campaign and tagline over the years. What does the company continue to do well? What are the pros and cons of its most recent strategic marketing plan?
Walmart is one of the biggest retail company in all over the world. It is one of the most growing company in USA. Walmart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. Sam Walton sold lower price products to his customers comparative to its competitors by keeping his profit margin low. Since 1962 Walmart had different marketing campaign to offer lower price products to its customers. Since that time Walmart has been called one of the largest retailer company whose focus is to provide low price products. Walmart expanded through the US in 1970s and 1980s. In 1980s, it acquired many of its competitors and opened new stores. In 1988, Walmart opened super center discount store which was revived with food outlets and other conveniences like photo lab, hair salon and optical center. By 1990, Walmart had stores in 33 states in US and became the most earning revenue company with $32 billion USD. In 1991, Walmart did international expansion with a store in Mexico City and has grown to more than 5600 international locations. Walmart’s marketing plan and beliefs are customer centered. Walmart has been worked on three basic beliefs ‘Respect for individuals”, “Service to customers” and “Striving for excellence”. Walmart’s marketing campaign has evolved over the years. Early marketing campaign was based on mouth to mouth publicity and aggressive store expansion. In 1992, Walmart introduced one of its well known tagline “Always low prices, always” which became popular as a company’s brand image reverberated with millions. In 1996, Walmart launched price rollback campaign with the familiar yellow smiley face as the star of the campaign. In 21st century, Walmart entered on the road with lot of obstacles. From 2000 to 2005, Walmart’s stock price fall 27 percent and remained low till 2007. In mid 2000s Target outstripped Walmart in sales growth and profit growth. Walmart lost its right to use smiley face in its marketing campaign. To create a better image, Walmart launched a series of new creations to improve growth and sales. Walmart’s new tagline “Save Money. Live Better” is indeed a great step for repositioning their brand image and regaining market shares. Walmart launched highly successful $4 generic drug campaign which was ultimately used by Target. During that time Walmart implemented some marketing strategies like use of environment friendly products like making new building from recycled materials, cut transportation cost and energy used and motivate customers to use more green and ecofriendly products. That was a part of its solid marketing strategy. Television commercials helped to highlight positive offering of the company like improved energy cost, 401(k) retirement saving. Walmart used new campaign to highlight unique product mix and low prices and attract more customers. Walmart always try to sell low price products to its customers which is a key identification mark for the company. To evaluate pros and cons of Walmart’s recent marketing plan, SWOT analysis would be helpful. One of the most important strength of Walmart is size of stores and low-price products. Another strength of marketing plan is a wide range of products at one stop compare to its competitors. Customers always like to buy all products from one place which will save their time and travelling cost. One of the good things about opportunity section is more growth of the company. Company runs successfully by supply chain management by low price products. New marketing plan promotes use of social media which helps company to connect with its customers, get feedback and build loyalty. The cons of its new marketing plan is smaller size stores. Walmart is famous for its large size stores it may receive negative reaction from some people regarding small stores. Another con is ethical concerns. As the company expanded, level of labor conditions worsened. So this way over the years Walmart has applied different marketing plans to maintain its position in retail market.
Walmart performs very well when the economy turns sour. How can it protect itself when the economy is on the rise? Explain.
Walmart will need to utilize different marketing strategies to promote products, services and gain trust of customers. Walmart can use Marketing Information System (MIS) in order to use continuous information from company which contains people, equipment and products to gather, sort, examine and distribute important, timely and accurate information to marketing decision process. This system can help Walmart to decide what they really need to do well as economy goes down. Walmart needs to secure a solid position in the market, so it would not be easily affected by any changes in economy. This can be possible by using effective marketing strategies that would make secure position in the market by getting most of the sales of all products regardless of economy changes. Walmart can use marketing intelligence system, which is a set of procedures and sources that managers use to obtain everyday information about development in the marketing environment. Marketing intelligence can be collected on internet, so Walmart can use this platform for customer reviews, expert opinions, public blogs and sales agent feedback sites. This can help Walmart to perform better as per customer demand and marketing position. Walmart can able to use various marketing strategies to perform better. Analyzing macroenvironment by identifying major forces like demographic environment, economic environment, political-legal environment, social-cultural environment, Walmart can make effective marketing decisions. In last, Walmart would have to focus on innovative ideas to remain on top position which attracts wide range of consumers in spite of their purchasing power.
References
Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L. (2015). Marketing management, 15th edition
