Marketing Team Project

MKTG 301.001


The purpose of this assignment is to use the things you have learned in this course to
analyze and understand the marketing strategy of two retailers occupying the same business
space. Throughout this project your will be looking for differences in the brands and trying to
understand how those differences impact the marketing of each brand.

Pick a pair of retailers from the attached list. You may choose another pair, but it must be
approved by the instructor.

The assignment is divided into two parts. The first part is a 4-to-6- page paper covering
the topics indicated for each of your retailers. The last part is an 8-12 page paper summarizing all
you have learned (including what you learned in part I) and drawing conclusions about the
brands you have studied. This final report is to be presented as a 10-15-minute report in class on
November April 25.

These reports are to be based on secondary sources (properly cited in the text and
identified in an appropriate bibliography), interviews with managers at the retailers and your own
team observations when visiting the stores. It is critical that you explain how you know the
things you report. See the section on writing the reports. Note: I use the word brand here to refer
to the retailers you will be studying. Thus Macys, McDonalds and Whole Foods are all brands.

Part I (25 points) Submit via email by 7 p.m. October 5. Use subheads to organize the paper
into these sections:

Introduction --

Identify your retailers in the business environment. Are they chain stores, franchises or
independent retailers? If chain or franchises how large are the parent organizations? Give a brief
history of the brand (no more than two paragraphs). Is the brand profitable? (Please be sure that
you distinguish carefully between revenue and profit.) If there is no public data available, make
your own assessment and explain your reasoning.

Site Visit

Give the locations and dates that your team visited each retailer. Report the names of the
team members who participated. If you talked with any managers at the stores report their full
names and titles.

Merchandise --

Compare and contrast the product assortments of each brand? Which is wider? Which is
deeper? How would you assess its quality?



Physical characteristics

Compare the physical features and aesthetics of each brand (signage, lighting, stock
arrangement). Compare the locations of the particular stores you are studying. Does either show
a strategy or draw an advantage in these areas?

Customer service --

Compare and contrast the customer service of each brand. Do the companies offer any
warranty beyond that offered by the product manufacturer? If possible, buy and then return a
product. (Keep it in good condition.) Discuss how you are treated by each store.

Prices --

Find 3-5 similar items at each store and compare the prices? Is there a pattern or strategy
you can discern?


Part II (175 points) Submit as hard copy with a print-out of your slides. (And email me a copy
as indicated elsewhere.)

Introduction

Two-page summary of what you learned in Part I.

Positioning How does the company want the public to think about the brand in comparison to
other brands. What evidence do you base your conclusion on?

Target Marketing What is the target market for the brand. Describe it both in terms of age,
income, social class and any other factors you think are relevant. Explain how you reached this
conclusion.

Marketing Communication --

Pick one of the following tools of marketing communication and answer the following
questions. (Supply examples of the communication):

A. Traditional advertising
B. Company website
C. Twitter feeds
D. Facebook page
E. Company sponsored blogs
F. Public relations activities


1. What is the central message the company wants to transmit via this medium?

2. How do the examples you supply support the overall marketing strategy of the company?


Why is the marketing strategy of each brand ?

Summarize the marketing strategy of each brand. Where does the company want to
exceed expectations and where is it willing to be just as good as the competition. In other
words, what do you think is the companys competitive advantage?

Beginning with the positioning and target marketing strategy of the company, show how
these areas support the companys strategy:

a. Merchandise mix
b. Pricing
c. Marketing communication



Possible Topics:


Victorias Secret aerie or Belle Mode

Abercrombie & Fitch -- Banana Republic

Home Depot Local Ace or True Value hardware store (Twins Ace Hardware in Fairfax may
not be used.)

H & M Anne Taylor

Jos. A. Bank Brooks Brothers

J. Jill Coldwater Creek

American Eagle Outfitters Aeropostale

Kohls Nordstrom

Bloomingdales Chicos

Cold Stone Creamery Haagen-Dazs

L.L Bean REI

New York & Company Nine West

Cheesecake Factory Great American Restaurants (Ozzies, Arties Carlyle, Jacksons, Mikes
American, Coastal Flats or Sweetwater Tavern)

The Limited New York & Company

Five Guys Burger King

Justice Naartjie Kids

Lucy Lululemon

CVS Rite Aid or Walgreens

Petsmart PetCo or Wylie Wagg

Banana Republic The Gap

Giant Aldi

Tesla Motors Jim McKay Chervolet

Note: You may request permission to do a report on a pair of retailers not on this list.

I would like to avoid duplicate topics for the final class presentations. Therefore I
will assign these brands to teams on a first-come, first-serve basis. When your team has
picked the brands you want to study email me. Please be sure to include your section in the
email.


Notes on Writing

For team papers, I expect that everyone on the team will have proofread the paper
before it is turned in. Therefore, I expect papers to be without mechanical errors.

Paragraphing. For some reason unknown to me, many GMU students are reluctant to
use paragraphing in their papers. I have even received papers that consisted of one or two very
long paragraphs. Paragraphs help give structure and order to a paper. Use them.

Use bold subheads to organize the paper so I can follow your organization. These
subheads should match the major sections of the assignment.

If you are not comfortable with your writing skills, make an appointment with the
Writing Center to review your draft. (Make the appointment well in advance of when you need
it.)

It is particularly important that you write the name of your brand correctly. Note that it
is Nordstrom, Wegmans, Victorias Secret and Bloomingdales, not Nordstroms
Wegmans, Victoria Secrets and Bloomingdales. Check the brand website to see how the
company writes the name and use it correctly.

When writing about numbers you should not begin a sentence with a numeral. For
example:

Wrong: 9% of our sample believed that beer should be sold at basketball games.

Right: Nine percent of our sample believed that beer should be sold at basketball games.

Even better: Among our sample, 9% suggested that the sale of beer at basketball games
would improve attendance.

In team projects there is a tendency to divide up the work and then paste together the
sections that each member has written. This usually leads to a poorly written paper. Plan your
project so that you have time to write a draft, get comments from everyone on the team and then
do a second draft. This will produce a better paper.


The single most common problem in student writing in the School of Management is
the use of plural pronouns for businesses, i.e. Microsoft. They, rather than Microsoft. It.
Check your paper carefully for this problem.

I prefer MLA citation style for secondary sources and I have posted two short
summaries of MLA citations for Internet sources. Please annotate your bibliography. That means
write a short sentence explaining what your source is. (This is not necessary for books or articles
from major magazines.) If you cant explain what a source is, dont use it. Note that this does
not involve what you got from the source, it involves explaining what the source is, i.e. web
magazine, individual blog, white paper on an academic site, etc.
Note that the purpose of a bibliography is to allow me to find the source. Regardless of
the style you choose, be sure to provide sufficient identification for me to find the source.
Be sure that all the sources used in the paper are included in your bibliography and that
all the sources in the bibliography are used in the paper.

Introduce and qualify your sources with a signal phrase in your text for anything other
than a simple fact citation. For example, if you are reporting the number of stores Wegmans
operates you can simply cite the companys website. If you want to say that Wegmans is
considered one of the best companies to work for, then you need to site something other than the
companys website. (According to Fortune, Wegmans is considered one of the best large
companies to work for in the United States. (Brown))

Be careful about using a companys own website as a source for an opinion or a
conclusion. A company may be a recognized leader in technological innovation, but I want to
have that verified by a source other than the company itself.

Since this is a team paper it is appropriate to use we or our team as in Our team
believed that the milkshakes at McDonalds tasted better than those at Burger King. It is not
appropriate to use I.