Digital Age Marketing Essay Report
Word limit 3000+
The Future of Marketing in the Digital Age Marketing forms one of the fundamental principles of management. All organisations need to be able to utilise the principles of marketing in order to compete and succeed in an increasingly complex, globalized and rapidly changing business environment. Over the last three decades, advances in information and digital technologies have radically disrupted and transformed how organizations operate, how they engage with their existing and potential customers, and how they communicate with key stakeholders and publics. While these changes are profound, the fundamental principles of marketing have arguably remained relatively constant. The critical skill for all management and marketing professionals is to understand how the established principles of marketing that were designed and developed in a pre-information age can be adapted and repurposed to meet contemporary demands and needs.
Assignment Question:
Drawing on the theories and materials introduced to you in the module (see list of suggestions below), critically discuss how information and digital technologies have transformed organisations operations, communication, and engagement with existing and potential customers. You should employ no more than 3 theories in your discussion. In your essay, discuss how future changes in information technologies might change these practices in the future. Please support your essay with relevant examples and substantiate your discussion with appropriate references.
List of suggested theories (employ no more than 3 theories)
- Marketing communications (linear model of communication, integrated communication, standardisation, adaptation)
- Market segmentation, targeting and positioning (marketing mix)
- Pricing strategy (Economy pricing, market penetration, skimming strategy)
- New product development and innovation (product life cycle, product innovation, line extension etc.)
- Market research and marketing intelligence
- Business ethics (marketing ethics, sustainability, fair-trade)
- Services marketing (service-dominant logic, co-creation, relationship marketing, extended mix (i.e. 7P’s) · Distribution strategies and retailing (just-in-time production system)
- Brand strategy (Brand image, co-branding brand identity and brand equity)
- Public relations and stakeholder engagement (corporate social responsibility, sustainable consumption)
- Customer relationship management and lifetime value (relationship marketing,
- Business to business and supply chain management (business buyer behaviour, supplier search, supplier selection, procurement systems and e-procurement)
Introduction (appr. 300 words)
Begin your essay with an introduction of how digital technologies have impacted the area of marketing practices you wish to discuss. For example, you may wish to discuss how the advent of digital media has transformed the ways in which product innovation, marketing communications and relationship marketing are practised. You may, of course, choose to concentrate on one marketing practice especially when there are extensive literature in this area. Here, you should provide a brief rationale as to why these areas of marketing practices are important for marketer’s scholars and practitioners to discuss in light of the digital revolution. You may also provide a brief background information (e.g. statistics on social media advertising etc.) to showcase the relevance of your discussion topics. However please refrain from providing lengthy and generic description of companies/brands and digital technology in general. The purpose of this paragraph is to establish the rationale of your discussion topic.
How has Digital Technology Transformed current marketing practices (appr. 1500 words)
In this section, you should attempt to thematise the essay by discussing the ways in which digital technology has transformed the areas of marketing practices you introduced in your introduction. For instance, following the example provided above, the main crux of the discussion revolves around the topics of product innovation, marketing communications and relationship marketing. Here you should aim to derive cross-topics common themes and discussed them in a synthesised manner. In this example, a common theme binding these three topics is ‘co-creation of value’. In the age of digital technology, ideas for new product are increasingly being developed through crowdsourcing, which involves the consumers working in conjunction with the marketers in the new product development process. Similarly the theme of ‘co-creation’ can also be witnessed in practices of marketing communications, where consumers (usually through social media influencers) and marketers are co-creatively involved in the production and evaluation of marketing campaigns. In keeping with the theme to involve consumers as co-creators, many organisations are developing avenue to engender customer relations – for example through virtual brand community etc. As illustrated in the example above, you are encouraged to discuss your essays using cross-topic common themes. The number of themes you wish to discuss is up to you as long as they are within the word limits. I also strongly encouraged you to use subheadings for each theme. Please ensure that you support your arguments with supporting references and illustrative examples.
The Future of Marketing Practices (appr. 700 words)
In this section, you should discuss how future development of digital technology may impact on the marketing practices you discussed above. What future development is likely to unfold in the next decade? How would this impact on the marketing practices you have discussed above? What opportunities and challenges are marketers faced with in light of this development?
Conclusion (appr. 500 words)
Bring together the above discussions. In this section, and drawing on your observations above, reflect on your personal/professional views concerning the impact of digital technology on marketing practices. Do you consider the rise of digital technology to be an optimistic/pessimistic development? Why? How would you as future marketing practitioner respond to the advent of digital technology?
References (not included in the word count)
Around 15 references, MUST ensure that all references and citations are correctly included, applying the Harvard Reference System of citation. When you present direct extracts, or when you refer to a specific idea or theme within a text, the citation must also include a page number. If you are unsure about referencing you should refer to appropriate study resources and materials.