assignment

Assignment

Student’s task:

A – Pick a company of your choice, it might be an existing business, or even a business which you are thinking of opening it after your graduation from this program. B – Using this points if should use (competitive Intelligence), prepare a profile of the competitive environment

· The industry structure

· The number of competitors

· Competitor product and service offerings

· Competitor market share, gross sales and profits

· Potential for competitor growth

· Company advantages and disadvantages

· Competitor marketing, pricing and distribution

· Competitors’ technological situation

· Competitive barriers to market entry and exit

· Impact of industry regulations

· Potential competitors

· Competitor attitudes towards new competition

· Indirect competition

The Company name: Artistic Designs

· The industry structure Artistic Designs is a design and advertising agency that I in partnership with two of my colleagues will set up that will comprise of ten veteran designers, creative directors, copy writers, strategists, public relation officers, and a procurement officer. It will offer marketing services to various clients. Artistic Designs will provide both above the line and below the line advertising services. Above the line advertising will include TV commercials, radio, print media and digital presence e.g. websites and experiential media like billboards, road shows and in store branding. Below the line advertising comprises of customer relationship, direct response and services like calendars, T-shirts, caps, and newsletters (Mackay, 2004). Comment

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: Good introduction. A few lengthy sentences though.

· The number of competitors and Competitor product and service offerings In the United States this marketing and advertising industry is quite competitive. Major competitors in marketing and advertising include Epsilon, Acxiom, Rapp and DigitasLBi among others. Comment 2 : Grammar issue . In terms of revenues and growth in expansion and acquisition, Epsilon is currently the biggest marketing agency in the US. It focuses on data analysis and efficient communication such as direct mail. Services include above the line advertising e.g. television commercials and print, below the line advertising e.g. customer relationship & direct response and production of creative direct marketing products, list analysis and automated database management software development among others. comment 3: Grammar issue. Acxiom, an IT services company, focuses on marketing technology and database analytics offering direct mail, digital marketing services and even traditional technology consulting and outsourcing services. Rapp focuses on direct marketing, customer management and various below the line services and off late has also ventured into digital CRM and interactive services. Digitas a digital agency network specializes on direct marketing and interactive services and has expanded by merging with other agencies and later LBi to form DigitasLBi (www.adbrands.net) comment 4 : Citation issue, I could not get this material from adbrands .net when citing a material , you should bring the link and time that you have taken the material .

· Competitor market share, gross sales and profits Epsilon, Acxiom, Rapp and DigitasLBi-In Fiscal year ended 31st March 2013, Acxiom’s market share was 21% their revenue streams stood at $1,099million, Epsilon market share stood at 32% of the advertising business with a revenue of $3,86 million Rapp had 23% of the market and a profit of $2,012 million and lastly DigitasLBi had a market share of 24% and a revenue of $3,048million. (www.adbrands.net) Comment 5 : Citation issue, I could not get this material from adbrands .net when citing a material , you should bring the link and time that you have taken the material .

· Potential for competitor growth–With the embracing of technological means of marketing as per research carried out by artistic designs research department most of our competitors comment 6 : Whose competitors? will be adding value to the various products they offer their clients through use of various digital mediums i.e. websites ,and social media activations such as viral videos and webcasts. (Mackay, 2004).

· Company advantages and disadvantages–Artistic designs is way ahead when it comes to use of digital media to market our clients products as our organization is made up of young agile employees who are technologically savvy. We have a department dedicated to digital presence as well. We have been looking into engaging various ambient and guerilla marketing strategies in an effort to increase market share. Comment 7 and 8 Who is this “we”? and This report is your analysis of a subject, we are not supposed to write our note (Mackay, 2004).

· Competitor marketing, pricing and distribution–Our advertising agency will seek to cater to different demographics of clients so as to maximize on the revenue streams for Artistic designs. We will engage customers on a one to one basis so as to customize marketing products. This is because our competitors seem to be marketing to corporate clients and as per our research their pricing and distribution is aimed at the middle and upper class in the society (www.adbrands.net) comment 9 The same citation issue

· Competitors’ technological situation—Our competitors are not as technologically streamlined and have stuck to traditional means of advertising such as use of print, radio and TV. It’s our expectation they will seek to upgrade into digital platforms into the future but we will have made strides in the digital sphere to cement our place. (Altstiel et al.,2006) comment 10 should be your own thought

· Competitive barriers to market entry and exit–Most of the players in the advertising fraternity are owned under multinational conglomerates such as WPP comment 11 what does WPP stands for? in academic writing .we are supposed to introduce our abbreviations first . and because of this they have monopolized the industry in terms of competitiveness. (www.adbrands.net)

· Impact of industry regulations–The industry is not as regulated as it should be apart from award ceremonies such the Cannes. There is not much bench marking involved in terms of standards that Artistic designs would be held up to.

· Potential competitors–Our key competitors are the four agencies mentioned above as they are the ones presently leading the market.

Competitor attitudes towards new competition–The competition is expected to stage fights using marketing tactics such as pitching to clients and also doing research on who Artistic design are but we have contingency plans for any arising issues our competitors might pose (Altstiel et al.,2006)

· Indirect competition Production houses such as TV stations who have their own internal advertising departments will eat into our revenue streams as they will produce cheap adverts and cost us potential clients also companies who run their own digital programs such as social media and websites as well as newsletters (Altstiel et al.,2006)

References

United States Advertisers: Agencies (2013).Advertising Age. Mind Advertising Ltd. Retrieved from

Home

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Altstiel et al. (2006).Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics from the Outside. Sage Publication Inc.

Mackay A. (2004).The Practice of Advertising. Butterworth-Heinemann.

General Comments:

Your study has done a proper analysis in answering each question. Meanwhile, in addressing few of the reasons and strategies, you have brought the ideas direct from the source, which the report needs, your own thought. Some corrections in your sentences/writing style are needed.

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