Marketing Systems And Community Engagement - A Case Study Of Milo

Factors affecting the economic growth of a specific market

Question:

Discuss about the Marketing System and Community Engagement Of Milo.

The marketing systems have developed with the course of time due to the significant increase of the complicatedness in the business environment. The continuous growth in the technology, business infrastructure and the access of information all around the world had resulted in this complexity in the business environment. In addition to that the businesses also face an increased demand of the consumers; therefore they have been compelled to adopt the innovative marketing system so that the brand can position itself in the competitive market (Watson et al. 2016). Some of these issues that are related to the market system involve interactions both at the social and economical levels. In addition to that, in recent times, the business organizations have indulged in several community programs so that they can interact with the consumers which may lead to a significant benefit for both the community and the businesses. The Milo case study can be considered as an instance of such engagement. This study will discuss various marketing system strategies and the community engagement activities that Milo had opted in engaging the brand in the cricket events in Australia.

There are numbers of factors that are required to take into account for analyzing the economic growth of a specific market. There are specialized roles and the market structures that need to be managed in the business environment in a careful method. These roles can also be recognized as the marketing systems, technology and institutions that can constitute as the factors important for the occurrence of development (Lockrey 2015). While the institutional changes may occur in a long term process, the technological changes occur in a medium term and it tends to be a discontinuous process, however, the changes in the marketing systems may lead to further improvements in both the long term and short term processes. The considerable changes in the marketing system may also lead in having an immediate change in the community as well. Therefore it can be said that the marketing systems have a crucial role to play in the quality of life of the community where the brand operates. Therefore a lack of responsiveness due to the functional or structural reasons may lead to affecting the quality of the community life (Lund et al. 2014). The community engagement is a procedure where the business organization acts for the benefit of the surrounding community; therefore it works in building a long lasting relationship to applying a collective vision in the benefit of the community. It is much of an active process of the implementation of the change than the strict ways of the traditional marketing techniques.

According to Astle (2014) who conducted a review on the effectiveness of the community engagement identified the approaches such as community coalitions, peer educators, neighborhood committees, community champions and community workshops. These approaches can be utilized in addressing several domains of the community health. The effectiveness of the community engagement also depends on the target behavior of the community along with the community of interest. For this approach, it is necessary to understand the community engagement theory. There are several researches that explore the theory of a good community engagement and draws experiences from all over the world. The framework of the scope of community engagement suggests that there are certain goals in the community engagement theory, such as Inform, Consult, Involve, Collaborate and Empower (Brodie et al. 2013). In order to complete the goals any organization needs to follow some techniques. The first stage of community engagement is to keep the general population know about the achievements of the brand through different means such as online websites, social media, exhibitions etc. In the next stage ‘consult’, the brand needs to obtain the public feedback (Cook 2015). This stage is a structured procedure of inviting responses from the focus groups through surveys and public meetings. The next stage is ‘involve’ that involves working directly with the consumers through various workshops and other programs. The next stage in ‘collaborate’ where the brand partners with a community program to have a face to face dialogue through decision making and participatory. Therefore the brand needs to place the ultimate decision making to public by supporting the community control through developed structures.

Importance of marketing systems in the quality of community life

In the marketing system theory Lusch and Vargo (2014) show that it involves the innovation and exchanges in the marketing. In terms of exchange, it can be considered that the act refers to getting the desired things from another part who is offering something else in return. However, in case of the brand management, this exchange theory is not exactly literal; rather it is a symbolic exchange. There are mutual exchanges of the psychological, social and other intangible objects between two or more parties. In this particular case study, Milo has been engaged the brand in a mutual exchange of public support by engaging itself in different cricket events. Milo has sponsored several cricket matches including the Blackburn cricket club and Sunbury United. Through this sponsorship the brand gets to promote itself in the local population and in return they take the financial responsibility of the matches. This theory also refers to the social psychology theory of Reciprocity. The reciprocity refers to giving back of a treatment in return something they have received. Here the cricket association of Australia and the brand Milo both are in benefit as they are bulding a relationship of exchange.

Milo has collaborated with Cricket Australia to promote several cricket programs in the Australian schools in order to make a community engagement through their marketing theories. Milo which is a brand of the Nestle Company has implemented the business strategies as a part of their marketing venture. Their business strategy was innovative and unique; therefore it stood out in the market as a major brand among the other similar beverage brands. Therefore it had been able to position itself in the competitive market. The major step taken by the company was to collaborate with Cricket Australia to promote cricket among all the primary and junior schools in Australia. Milo had been the major partner and the sponsor of the significant cricket events such as Milo in2CRICKET and Milo T20 Blast programs. By sponsoring these programs the brand was able to reach to a huge range of consumers and became capable of developing a new height of competitiveness in the market. Through these programs Milo had partnered with the Government of Australia for the support of cricket. This has worked for Milo as a major Community engagement and the brand was able to draw attention in the competitive market. Also the Cricket Australia initiatives had received significant funding from the Australian government for the support of these programs. As Milo had affiliated itself into the programs, it had drawn attention from a huge range of consumers. According to the community management theory, to associate with the consumers the brand needs a mass participation. Milo had targeted the general population who has at least one child at home through these programs; therefore it could easily reach the population with the help of the government aided programs. Also, recalling the explanation of marketing, it can be said that it is a continuous process which is undertaken by the brand in creating the value for their consumers while they had developed a strong relationship with them at the same time. By training the young children for cricket, Milo had created a value in the market as well.       

Conclusion and Recommendation

In conclusion it can be said that Milo had made an example in the marketing system as it had involved a direct face to face interactions with the consumers. It had also involved the exchange theory, as it had exchanged desired objects with the Cricket Australia by sponsoring their events. However, there may be some improvements in their programs. Milo could also involve the small community programs in localities which will involve more consumers. Milo could also offer free sachets of their products to children in school. In addition to that they could also offer free educational gifts to the children with their logo on it. This will make the brand more popular. As according to the marketing theories promoting the brand name creates a more definite brand value in the market. Therefore Milo would be able to reach to more consumers.

References and Bibliography

Astle, A.M., 2014. Sport development-plan, programme and practice: a case study of the planned intervention by New Zealand cricket into cricket in New Zealand: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Management, College of Business, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand (Doctoral dissertation, Massey University).

Brodie, R.J., Ilic, A., Juric, B. and Hollebeek, L., 2013. Consumer engagement in a virtual brand community: An exploratory analysis. Journal of Business Research, 66(1), pp.105-114.

Cook, P., 2015, January. A Systems View of Community Engagement: Exploration for Simple Rules of Interaction to Explain Community Resistance in Landfill Siting Situations. In Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the ISSS-2014 United States (Vol. 1, No. 1).

Curtis, A., Ross, H., Marshall, G.R., Baldwin, C., Cavaye, J., Freeman, C., Carr, A. and Syme, G.J., 2014. The great experiment with devolved NRM governance: lessons from community engagement in Australia and New Zealand since the 1980s. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 21(2), pp.175-199.

Lockrey, S., 2015. A review of life cycle based ecological marketing strategy for new product development in the organizational environment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 95, pp.1-15.

Lund, D.J., Robicheaux, R., Hansen, J. and Cid, C., 2017. Brick Versus Click: A Resource-Based View of Retail Relationship Marketing Through Community Engagement, an Extended Abstract. In Creating Marketing Magic and Innovative Future Marketing Trends (pp. 363-367). Springer, Cham.

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

Watson, W.L., Brunner, R., Wellard, L. and Hughes, C., 2016. Sponsorship of junior sport development programs in Australia. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, 40(4), pp.326-328.