Marketing Strategies and Styles

Discuss about the Marketing Strategies and Styles.

Introduction

The businesspersons are going adapting to various strategies and marketing styles to promote their business in the society (Laczniak and Murphy 2012). One such type of marketing is the societal marketing. The main concept of costal marketing refers to the action when an organization decides to give back something to the society while carrying out their own business (Wood 2012). A number of activities can be taken up by an organization while adhering to the societal marketing (Emery 2012). Some of the types of societal marketing are:

• Eco-friendly marketing
• Consumer health
• Supporting local business

The organizations aim at carrying out their own business activities while helping the society (Austin and Seitanidi 2012). It might happen, while adhering to societal marketing, an organization is not only helping the society; in some way or the other it is reducing the expenditure of the organization and increasing the profit of the organization. In this way, the company gets to fulfill their corporate social responsibility and simultaneously do their business (Murphy, Öberseder and Laczniak 2013). For the present essay the two companies that will be studied are Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club and Geofabrics, both located in Australia. Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club is in the clubbing business, while Geofabrics is a geosynthetic products supplier in Australia and other parts of the world.

Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club is one of the famous social clubs in Australia that is open from day until late at night. The café of the club serves all types of food items like, sandwiches, wraps, oven-baked pizza, cakes, coffee and Portuguese tarts (Ofbrc.com.au 2016). The Kingston Street Brasserie and Grill of the club is famous for its fresh and seasonal food at an affordable price. The luxurious lounge will help the customers spend a great time at the club. However, Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club stands out in the crowd of other normal clubs. The main feature of the club is the sustainability advantage program. The club bases its operations ion three green strategies that are interdependent ion each other:

• Sustainability action plan
• Resource efficiency action plan
• Staff engagement action plan

The expenditure of the club is as follows:

• $5000 every year for training the employees about sustainability
• $6000 to implement innovative ideas
• $35,000 is the amount of a fund that is kept for sustainability programs
• $10,000 for retro-fitting light

The lights will save 100,000 kilowatts of electricity every year and will help in cutting the bill of the club by 10%. The club estimated that due to the increase in tariff in the duration of June-December 2010, which would ultimately increase the electricity bill by $12,000 (Office of Environment and Heritage 2016). However, on the contrary, the club recorded a decrease of $2000 in the bill. Finally, the turnaround was $14,000 when the actual and the expected cost was compared. Hence, it can be seen that, though Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club has to spend amount of money extra for fitting the lights, but on a long run, it helped the organization to reduce the electricity bill. When on one hand, the lights helped the organization to promote societal marketing; it helped the organization to reduce the cost of business for the organization (Lusch and Vargo 2014).

In addition this, Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club has a greenhouse gas inventory that will help in tackling the five sources of emission like the car fleet, electricity, natural gas, water and waste.

Figure 1: The sustainable programs going on at Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club

(Source: Office of Environment and Heritage 2016)

Matt O’Hara, the CEO of the club says that the initiative taken by the club is to not only provide the customers a place to relax and have fun but also provide the future generation a better world to grow and sustain them. This quote by Matt O’Hara represents the fact the seriousness of Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club in the steps they are taking to promote a sustainable business and help in societal marketing.

Geofabrics is one of the most popular suppliers of geosynthetic products to the engineering and resources sector in Australia (Geofabrics.com.au 2016). Geofabrics has been operating in the Australian market since the last 30 years. The geosynthetic products of Geofabrics are used in coastal engineering applications, mining and resource projects, landfill and road and railway construction projects. Gerofrabics at giving the best quality products to the customer with proper advice and quality assured predicts. The Geosynthetic Centre of Excellence tests the products and finds the solution for some of the complex projects. The Geosynthetic Testing Services, which is the commercial laboratory of the organization carries a NATA accredited geosynthetic testing for the customers (Environment.nsw.gov.au 2016). However, the testing is done in a confidential manner. However, Geofabrics does not compromise on the way the business is carried even if they are operating in competitive market and aims to stay ahead of the competitors.

Geofrabrics gives special attentions to sustainability and aims at saving money, time and effort by increasing the efficiency of resources and managing the waste. Some of the actions for sustainability as taken  up by Geofabrcis are:

• Cutting the electricity by 10 percent between the years 2009 and 2010
• Saving over $200,000 by enhancing the transport logistic
• Installing air compressor that have reduces the consumption of electricity to 1.17 kilowatt hours per kilogram from 1.28 kilowatt hours per kilogram. The reduction has helped the organization as it has been able to save 1,600 megawatt hours every year and the monetary saving is about $240,000.
• Installing power factor correction machine which will be in saving $30,000 in the cost of the energy
• Making changes in the design and process and hence, the organization has been able to conserve 258 tonnes of raw materials in one and half years and saved $310,000
• Working with the land council to help in reducing the waste by 31 percent

In addition to this, Geofabrics has improved the sustainability with the help of number of activities that deals with electricity, energy efficient compressors and motors, insulation, process design, purchasing, ducting, gas, natural light. The sustainability activities were taken care by the organization by employing the staffs at various posts, enhancing the communication with the employees and measuring the ecological footprints. To keep a check on the impact of the operations of the organization on the environment, Geofabrics developed carbon audit scope and greenhouse gas inventory.

Geofabrics has worked on the geosynthetic drainage system in the stadium of FIFA world cup that was help in South Africa in the year 2010. In addition to this, for megaflo drainage system Geofabrics has supplied over 20,000 lineal metres for many stadiums in Durban, Capetown and Johannesburg that help in draining the water in various stadiums of southern Africa, Europe, Australia, the south pacific, Asia and New Zealand. the actions of Geofabrics has helped many organizations to manage the drainage system in a proper manner and the events could be carried out well without any problems in the field.

Figure 2: Use of geosynthetic for the drainage system in stadiums

(Source: Environment.nsw.gov.au 2016)

Thus, it can be seen that along with the being one of the successful organization in the market of Australia, it did not forget to adhere to the sustainability programs and maintained the societal marketing (Dibb and Carrigan 2013). The organization thought above the business activities and thought about the society (Lii, Wu and Ding 2013). By expanding their sustainable business in international region, it helped Geofabrics get the desired fame. The organization need not open new offices in the international location; they just supplied their products, which helped them in fulfilling the societal marketing attributes.

Conclusion

The actions of both Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club and Geofabrics adhered to the societal marketing and they chose eco-friendly marketing. The works of Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club and the Geofabrics are quite similar to each other. Both the organizations planned their sustainability programs by concentrating in saving the energy helping in reducing the emissions. Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club has went one step forward by keeping an amount every year to train the employees on how to work towards sustainability. Once an organization adhered to the societal marketing, it works as good PR for the organization. Moreover, the normal business for the organization is also not harmed in the process. Once viewed from the environmental point of view, it will help not only in the enhancement of the business of the organization; it will also help in giving a better future to the organization. It is mainly due to this reason that both Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club and Geofabrics focus on societal marketing rather than just focusing on the normal business operations of the organization. the societal marketing helped the organizations in reducing the expenditure of the organization and increase the profit of the organization.

References

Austin, J.E. and Seitanidi, M.M., 2012. Collaborative value creation: A review of partnering between nonprofits and businesses: Part I. Value creation spectrum and collaboration stages. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, p.0899764012450777.

Dibb, S. and Carrigan, M., 2013. Social marketing transformed: Kotler, Polonsky and Hastings reflect on social marketing in a period of social change. European Journal of Marketing, 47(9), pp.1376-1398.

Emery, B., 2012. Sustainable marketing. Pearson.

Environment.nsw.gov.au, 2016. Geofabrics | Sustainability Advantage case studies | NSW Environment & Heritage. [online] Environment.nsw.gov.au. Available at: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/sustainabilityadvantage/csGeofabrics.htm [Accessed 1 Sep. 2016].

Geofabrics.com.au, 2016. About Us | Geofabrics Australasia. [online] Geofabrics.com.au. Available at: http://www.geofabrics.com.au/about-geofabrics/about-geofabrics [Accessed 1 Sep. 2016].

Laczniak, G.R. and Murphy, P.E., 2012. Stakeholder theory and marketing: Moving from a firm-centric to a societal perspective. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 31(2), pp.284-292.

Lii, Y.S., Wu, K.W. and Ding, M.C., 2013. Doing good does good? Sustainable marketing of CSR and consumer evaluations. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 20(1), pp.15-28.

Lusch, R.F. and Vargo, S.L., 2014. The service-dominant logic of marketing: Dialog, debate, and directions. Routledge.

Murphy, P.E., Öberseder, M. and Laczniak, G.R., 2013. Corporate societal responsibility in marketing: normatively broadening the concept. AMS review, 3(2), pp.86-102.

Ofbrc.com.au, 2016. Oak Flats Bowling & Recreation Club. [online] Ofbrc.com.au. Available at: http://www.ofbrc.com.au/ [Accessed 1 Sep. 2016].

Office of Environment and Heritage, 2016. Case study – Oak Flats Bowling & Recreational Club. 1st ed. [ebook] Available at: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/business/sustainabilityadvantage/110465-cs-oak-flats.pdf [Accessed 1 Sep. 2016].

Wood, M., 2012. Marketing social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing,2(2), pp.94-102.

MyAssignmentHelp.co.uk is one of the leading academic solution providers in the United Kingdom which has assisted a countless number of students to achieve their academic goals with unmatched assignment help. With the proficient academic writing services from our expert assignment writers, you won’t have to worry about those stringent deadlines, complicated essay topics, or clashing assignments anymore.