Marketing Plan: Product Identification and SWOT Analysis

Prior to beginning work on this assignment,

Read

• Chapter 9: Managing the Marketing Effect, Sections 9.1 and 9.2, from the course text, Principles of Marketing

Watch

• How to Use SWOT AnalysisLinks to an external site.
• The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

Instructions:

This week, you will be creating components of your capstone marketing plan assignment. You will then finish your plan in Week 5.

Using the company you selected for your marketing manager internship, you will complete a situation analysis with the goal of identifying a new product or service to develop your marketing plan against.

Create a Word document of three to four pages formatted in APA Style that includes at least one scholarly, peer-reviewed, or other credible resource from the University of Arizona Global Campus library in addition to the course text.

In your paper,

• Describe the selected company and brand and a brief history.
• List the core products and services they offer.
• Identify the key current competitors.
• Complete a SWOT analysis
• Propose the product or service line you want to develop a marketing plan for.
  • Justify your proposal with a SWOT-based argument for why it warrants marketing investment.
  • Describe your core product, extended product, and the product concept.
• Explain how you plan to achieve competitive differentiation through creating customer value in the four areas listed below. Also, refer to The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy video:
  • Branding
  • Packaging
  • Support
  • Quality
• Be sure to use subject headers for each of the questions asked. Your paper needs to contain at least eight headers (i.e., introduction header, at least six headers for the six parts of the question, conclusion header)
  • Review the Level Heading section of Introduction to APA resource from the Writing Center for more information.

Helpful Tips:

Your marketing plan can focus on a new product or service idea of your own or an existing product or service that you think deserves its own dedicated campaign. Just don’t pick something that you’ve already seen being actively marketed.

For example, after completing a SWOT analysis for McDonald’s, one might propose marketing new concepts like a McVeggie burger or an adult Happy Meal. Further afield, one might propose a whole new chain of pay-to-visit indoor McPlayground Centers. Or relative to existing menu offerings, one might suggest a dedicated marketing campaign for say “burgers at breakfast” or after-midnight snacking via the drive-through.

Learn about your brand and then let your imagination run wild. It can be a big idea that will appeal to many of their customers or a very targeted effort—you decide. You can always adjust your idea after getting instructor feedback.

To learn more about SWOT analysis and see as an example how it is applied to Starbucks, you may see the below resources:

• Three Tips for a Better SWOT Analysis
• Starbucks SWOT Analysis

The Marketing Plan: Product Identification and SWOT Analysis paper

• Must be three to four double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA Formatting for Microsoft Word resource.

• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper in bold font
    • Space should be between title and the rest of the information on the title page.
  • Student’s name
  • Name of institution (University of Arizona Global Campus)
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Due date
• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice  resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions as well as Writing a Thesis Statement  refer to the Writing Center resources.

• Review the Level Heading section of Introduction to APA resource from the Writing Center for more information.
• Must use at least one scholarly or credible sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources  table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
• To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, review the Marketing Research in Library OneSearch and the Company Research in the UAGC Library tip sheets to assist with this assignment.

• Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper  guide.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References List  resource in the Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.