How to Complete a Newswatch Marketing Assignment - Industry Analysis

Instructions

Instructions

You are to complete this assignment individually. Students must submit an individual report and will receive an individual mark for this assignment. There can be no collaboration with other students, otherwise Academic Dishonesty charges will apply.

The Newswatch assignment:

1. introduces you to news events in marketing in the media
2. allows you to learn about a current marketing issue in a key industry
3. helps students make connections between marketing news events and their impact on businesses
4. requires you to analyze business articles
5. develops professional communication skills, including business report writing.

Assignment

Each student will first choose a major industry in Canada or any country of their choice. Each student will then research and submit a write up on 2 or 3 quality marketing news related articles relating to a major industry in their chosen country. Step 1: Industry Choice: Students will individually choose an industry that operates in Canada or in any country of their choice. To get the most out of this project I strongly advise you select an industry that has meaning and relevance to you, and that you will enjoy researching about. Choose an industry that has lots
of information and resources available about it (i.e. websites, business reports, advertising and promotions, news and magazine articles, etc.

Choose from one of the following industries:

Industry Focus - Suggestions

Retail - department stores, specialty stores
Food - franchises, restaurants, healthy eating
Transportation - airlines, railways, marine
Communications - TV, satellites, cellular
Manufacturing - automobiles, electronics
Financial Services - banks, credit unions
Public Sector - hospitals, crown corporations (eg. Canada Post, BC Hydro)
Energy - hydro, fossil fuels, nuclear power
Resources - forestry, mining, fisheries.

If you are passionate about another industry, you can also propose this to the instructor via email for approval.

Step 2

Find 2 or 3 recent marketing news related articles dealing with the industry you have chosen that were written in the last 12 months. The articles could address a particular company or the industry as a whole.

You must then submit a write up of the articles relating to two (2) of the following topics. Note that the articles should be focused on an issue in a particular company or an issue in the industry as a whole.

• Describe pricing issues in marketing that are impacting the company and/or industry
• Describe product or service issues in marketing that are impacting the company and/or industry
• Describe promotion issues in marketing that are impacting the company and/or industry
• Describe distribution issues in marketing that are impacting the company and/or industry.

Prepare a write up covering the following elements

- Summarize the events or issues related to the two of the following topics: product, price, promotion or distribution

- Based on your research, provide an explanation of the positive and/or negative implications for marketing managers in the company/industry.

- Based on your research, what is your opinion of the event or issue described (do you agree or disagree with the author’s points, and why). Are there any recommendations you wish to make (for instance, are there opportunities or threats posed to the industry/company and if so, what
could the industry/company do)

- This is a business report, please make sure you talk about business aspects (for example if you are writing about a new product launch, don’t talk too much about the features of the product, talk more about the impact to the business based on the marketing choices being made)

- Attach links of your articles or scanned photos of the articles to the back of your report. The
articles do not count towards the page limit of the report.