Business Marketing For Marketing Processes And Advantages - Case Studies Of Google And Virgin Group

Google’s Competitive Gain

Describe about the Business Marketing for Marketing Processes and Advantages.

Marketing is an action of promoting and selling the product and service through marketing research and advertising (Hair et al. 2012). The study has chosen two case studies for two different companies. These two companies are Google and Virgin Group. The study will describe the marketing process and competitive advantage of Google. The study will also analyze the marketing process and competitive advantage of Virgin Group. Apart from that, the study will also analyze sustained marketing process and competitive advantage of both organizations. The study will also align theories and models for analyzing the sustained marketing process of the organizations.

Google is an American multinational technology company, which is specialized in internet product and service. The products and services offered by Google include online advertising technology, hardware, software, search and cloud computing. The organization has held its position in the world with dominant search engine. The organization has held 65% of total search market on the (globe Ling 2013). The competitive gain and marketing process of Google can be demonstrated though Porter’s Generic Strategy.

Cost leadership suggests for using lower cost for products for gaining huge market share. The organization uses different types of pricing strategy as per the category of the products. Google has set average industry price for the product like Chromecast (Hardeck and Hertl 2014). It has helped the organization to gain higher profit than that of its competitors. On the other hand, the organization has set low price through penetration pricing strategy for the products like Cable Television Service and Google Fiber Internet (Cowgill and Zitzewitz 2015). It has helped Google to gain its market share over its competitors.

Innovation and differentiation is at the core of the Google’s Business. Google’s innovative service includes renowned Google Search, Google Apps, Google Chrome, Google Finance, Gmail Blogger and absence (George 2014). Google can offer its service to the web users at zero cost and attractive advertising model to the businesspersons (Finkle 2012). It has also invented Google glass and driver less cars. In this way, Google had gained its competitive advantage by being one-stop-shop for all computing and internet needs.

Google has targeted worldwide customers having its product available in 110 languages. It has targeted all tech savvy people with its high-end internet products. Moreover, the effective AdWords advertising model is customized for advertisers, publishers and internet based business (Lee 2014). Mostly educated people are targeted for Google products for getting exact value of the products.

Virgin Group’s Competitive Gain

Virgin Group Ltd is a British Multinational conglomerate operating over 400 companies in overseas market. The core business areas of the organization are travel, lifestyle, entertainment, healthcare, transport, food and drinks. The high sense of competitive advantage of Virgin Group can be described through Porter’s Generic Strategy.

Virgin Group stand for value for money associated with high quality. However, the organization uses competitive pricing for the products of Virgin Airline to gain profit over its competitor like British Airways. On the other hand, the organization has set low cost price for the products of entertainment and life style (Sadq 2016). It is way, Virgin Group has gain huge market share over its competitors.

The organization has brought its innovation through Virgin mobile and Virgin Train. Over the years, Virgin’s internal competencies through innovative service at Virgin Atlantic have created competitive gain for the organization. Apart from that, the differentiation and innovation of the organization can also be seen through Virgin Cola to compete with Pepsi and Coca-Cola (Finkle 2011).

Virgin Group had different target markets for its diversified product category. However, the organization has targeted middle to high-income group customers for its different product category (Corrocher and Lasio 2013). The organization has targeted almost each type of customers with their diversified product ranges.

Success Story of Google

Every day, millions of internet users type their search terms on the browser of Google search engine. It provides accurate and unremarkable information to the customers. In the search engine market, the organization has got almost 90% market share though its recognizable Google.com search page (Schaltegger, Lüdeke-Freund and Hansen 2012). In the year 2000, Google has launched AdWords, which is an innovative and effective online advertising tool. In the fist years only, the organization has drawn attention of ten thousand business users and become the pioneer in online advertising medium. It earns almost 30% more revenue than Yahoo per advertisement (Steiber and Alänge 2013). The success story of Google can also be seen through the success of Google Map, which has gained the attention of millions of customers. In 2013, Google Map has been considered as the world’s top most popular app for Smartphone (Steiber and Alänge 2013). In 2004, Google has launched it interactive Gmail Service to provide worldwide email service. This classic and user-friendly service provides free email option to the customers. Today almost 900 millions users around the world use this service (Joshi 2014).

Marketing Success

Virgin Group is consisted of eight different industries having net worth of $ billion. The industries include Virgin Mobile, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Megastores and Virgin Spaceflight Company. The Virgin Megastore Section has gained its huge success through its YAS store. This store is able to offer wide range of retail products for the customized needs of customers. It has worldwide presence with operating over 15 countries (Dowling and Moran 2012). Over the years, Virgin Airlines is gaining more profit that that of its competitor British Airways (Khojastehpour, Ferdous and Polonsky 2015). With reusable space in Virgin Galactic, the organization has gained huge customer loyalty in Virgin Group. Virgin Airline has become the second largest long haul airline in UK (Mukerjee 2016). In the mobile market, Virgin Mobile has become the fastest growing mobile phone company. This section has gained customer attention of almost 3 billion customers from its launch (Sadq 2016). Virgin Health Bank of Vrigin group has become the most popular transplant quality cord blood stem cell bank in UK.

Marketing Success of Google through Customer Segmentation

Interesting Form of Customer Segment for Google
Segmentation	Geographic ·         Worldwide Customers Demographic ·         Age: Both Young age and old age customers ·         Income Status: Low income group- high income group ·         Education: Educated people ·         Marital Status: Both Single and Married ·         Occupation: Businesspersons, Corporate people and students ·         Sex: Both male and female Psychological ·         Attitude: Positive Attitude ·         Personality: Positive Personality ·         Hobbies: Tech Savvy People ·         Life Style: Modern and sophisticated life style Behavioral ·         Having strong brand image ·         Seeking extra benefit from products and service (Free cost of search engine)
Target	·         Mostly young people ·         Educated persons ·         Businesspersons ·         Tech savvy people
Positioning	·         Free cost of search engine ·         Accurate and meaningful information in Google search engine ·         Diversified products range ·         User friendly interface of Google applications ·         Promotional options of businesspersons ·         Media sharing platform through Picasa

Table 1: Interesting Form of Customer Segment for Google

(Source: Cowgill and Zitzewitz 2015)

From the above table, it can be found that Google has worldwide presence with strong brand image. Customers can avail free search and advertising option through the application of Google platform. Therefore, it has targeted both low-income group and high-income group customer towards increasing customer base. In this way, the organization has gained 90% market share in search engine market (Finkle 2011). The effective and free advertising tools of Google have offered many opportunities for both small scale and large-scale organization to promote their products. In this way, the organization has earned most of its revenue from this advertising model in 2013 (Joshi 2014). The organization has become able to target worldwide customers, as it has wide range of diversified product with user-friendly platform.

Market penetration

In this strategy, Virgin Group tries to grow its existing Virgin Airline and Virgin Media products in the current market (Sadq 2016). The organization has used low product and service cost for increasing market share in the existing market.

Market Development

In market development strategy, Virgin Group has offered Virgin Galactic to the customers of Middle East (Corrocher and Lasio 2013). The unique offerings of this spaceflight have gained popularity in the Middle East Market. 

Product Development

In product development strategy, Virgin Group has launched Health care and financial services to the existing markets. These kinds of products have gained huge popularity in its unique offerings.

Marketing Success Linked with Theories and Models

Diversification

In diversification strategy, Virgin Group has launched Virgin Cola, music and recording for new types of customers. Virgin Cola is intended to beat with the competitors like Pepsi and Coca Cola ( Finkle 2011).

Figure 1: Ansoff Matrix

(Source: Mukerjee 2016)

Conclusion

While concluding the study, it can be said that Google has wide range of internet related products and services. Google Search Engine, Google Map, Google News, Gmail and many more are the competitive services. On the other hand, Virgin Group has also diversified product range including Virgin Airline, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Galactic and many more. The free cost of Google search engine and effective free advertising tools of Google have help its to gain competitive advantage over its competitors. Low cost and wide range diversified products of Virgin Group has assisted it to gain competitive advantage over its competitors.

Reference List

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