Brand Positioning And Marketing Mix For Sony A7SMK Camera Essay.

You will recommend a Brand Positioning for your Brand and Sub-Brand. Explain why this will appeal to your Target market and why this Brand Positioning provides a Point-of-Difference (also known as a Unique Selling Proposition) for your Brand and Sub-Brand, compared with the competitors. Draw two Positioning Maps.

the Marketing Mix – the 4Ps
Recommend a Marketing Mix (the 4Ps) which will effectively implement and communicate your Brand Positioning: -

PLC and the Diffusion of Innovation
Identify the stage your product is in on the Product Life Cycle (PLC).
Then, based on the stage your product is in on the Product Life Cycle, you will identify the consumers you will be targeting in terms of the Diffusion of Innovations.

Target Segment

This task is continuity of earlier task which was based on the market analysis of Sony A7SMK; now the main purpose of this report is to analyse the market segment and decide marketing strategy for the same. Market segment helps to promote the product to increase the sale. Some limitations were found in the process of building the positioning map because the product has many features. It is difficult to measure the main quality feature of the product. It is difficult to measure the price strategy of the company with the other companies. These challenges are discussed in the report and appropriate recommendations are provided. In the starting of the report, target segment of the product is discussed. After that brand positioning of the product will be discussed. At the end of the report, the recommendation will be provided for effective communication of brand positioning in the market. 

The target segment of Sony A7SMK is Youth with the age of 18-35. Nowadays, Youth are more conscious about their social sites posts; they want to attain whole attention on their single picture. Some of the people adopt the passion of photography to attract the people towards their pictures. It is observed that the girls are more conscious about their pictures within the particular age of 18-35. 47% of girls are observed that they are very sensible for looking good in their pictures. 95% of girls are conscious for their picture and wants to look gorgeous in their picture; this is good for the company. Sony camera helps them in adopting their passion with its features of 2.2 megapixels.

The company get the advantage by targeting the youth between the ages of 18-35. The company can easily influence the youth through advertisement for the product. The company gained high percentage of profit by increasing the sale of the product. Nowadays, people are finding the best camera features in their smart phone but if they get the camera product with the best quality of megapixels then the consumers run to buy the product of the company. Sale of product is increasing as it is satisfying the consumer demand and the youth is the only segment which shows their interest in clicking different pictures wherever they go. Thus, the Youth with the age of 18-35 is the right target segment for the company to increase the sale (Cross, Belich, and Rudelius, 2015).

Brand Positioning

The positioning statement of the product is “A Camera with many shooting modes - manufactured for the youth who love adventures”.

Sony is already known worldwide for its grate lenses and image quality. This makes the company a great brand all over the world. The company can position the product with its high quality features of Camera. Sony A7SMK has the unique features which can attract the customers towards it; such as excellent image quality, high quality electronic feature, Wi-Fi and advance feature with custom options. The company can launch its new global positioning with the product of high quality features. It can use the marketing mix strategy to boast the sale of the product. The company can promote the product through advertisements such as television advertisement, radio advertisement and many others (Armstrong, Adam, Denize, and Kotler, 2014).

Brand positioning of the product is set by using the strategy of promoting the product for its great features. Samsung, Panasonic, Philips are the major competitors of the company, it develops the product to differentiate the camera from its competitors. Its high quality image is different from the other competitors which makes it unique. It’s simple sharing and control with Wi-Fi feature is the USP of the product; it is simply different with the product of competitors. Competitors of the company develop the camera with the feature of quality images but Sony launched the product with sharing features which is different from the other competitor. This can be considered as Unique Selling Point for Sony A7SMK.  The different features provided in Sony A7SMK attract the consumer towards this camera (Wei, Samiee, and Lee, 2014).

The idea of covering a compact camera with the same features and high quality images is a highly appealing. The FE lenses are also the unique selling proposition of the product because that covers the camera’s full frame sensor. The FE sensor of the camera includes the kit of 28-70mm, and Zeiss 55-35mm (Henkel, Boegershausen, Aquino, and Lemmink, 2016). Sony FE lens is equal to 15 lenses which is beneficial for the photographers because the photographers are making good use of adapters. The company uses the price skimming strategy that is why it has high price (Solomon, Dahl, White, Zaichkowsky, and Polegato, 2014).

The camera has high customisation quality which makes the product different from the other companies. It also has a feature of spectrum which can easily focus on multi point (Thach, and Olsen, 2015).

Marketing Mix Strategy

It has been seen that Sony A7 SMK is at the maturity stage of Product Life Cycle; the two models were launched on 16^th October 2013 and the third model was launched on 6^th April 2014. From the date of the launch; people are excited to buy the product and it has seen a great sales figures. The sale of this model is high as compared to the other models of Sony camera. The price of model is also high as compare to the other competitors such as Cannon, Nikon and Samsung. The consumers quickly adopt this camera in use which states that this camera is on the maturity stage.

Sony A7 SMK camera is at the early majority stage which states that the consumers are quickly adopting the product’s innovation. This model of Sony received a positive reception from critics. This model achieved the higher rank in full-frame mirror less camera as compare to the other competitor. It achieved a score of 90 which is higher than the Nikon Df ; even it achieve the higher rank from the Sony SLT-A99. It is awarded as a “Camera of the Year” due to its high quality images. EPhotozine also rated the camera with the 5v stars for the smaller and lighter lenses as compare to the other cameras. These awards and achievements of models states that the camera has high sale in the market that is why it is in the early majority stage.

Sony A7 SMK is a shopping product which has infrequent sale that requires some efforts. Brand name of the camera is also important for the sale of the product. It has moderate and high price to sell the product and which is affordable by the higher and middle class only. This camera uses the retail channel to reach at the various consumers and it also uses mass media to promote the product. Mass media is right way to promote the product because nowadays people are spending time on social media more as compare to the other channel.

It has been seen that the company should design the camera with its core benefits. The core benefits of a camera are quality of images; the company should design the product with the main purpose of the camera which is capturing high quality images.

The second level of actual product is related with the customer values and demands. The company should design the product with different features that makes their product different from the competitors. The company should maintain the quality as the higher level so that the consumers can attract towards the services and features of product. Packaging of the product also attracts the consumers and makes the product different from the other (Datta, Ailawadi, and Heerde, 2017).

PLC and Diffusion of Innovation

The third level is augmented product that defines the consumer benefit and expectation of consumers from the product. The company should deliver the product with many benefits schemes such as delivery and credits, warranty, installation and many others. The services after the sale of the product; increase the demand of the consumer towards the product of the company. The company should provide the installation services without any charges and also provide the scheme of delivering the product on the credit basis and other as well. The company should provide the warranty so that the trust of consumer for the product is build and they can buy the product without any worries. The company should design these facilities to build the brand image in the market.

The company should promote the product by using the different channel of communication to build the brand image in the market. There are many channels which the company use to promote the product such as TV commercial, sales promotion and many others (Huang, and Sarigöllü, 2014).

The company should promote the product through the advertisement videos on television. Emotional videos attract the consumers towards the product.

The company should promote the product by organising the marketing campaigns. In these events, the company can explain the features and give the demo to build the consumer trust for the product.

Internet media is a help to promote the product in the market. There are many social sites through which the company can easily promote the product such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and many others. By posting the attractive pictures with features attracts the consumers towards the product.

Nowadays, People use the social media for entertainment and operate their business. The company can easily promote the product on these sites by uploading the attractive pictures. But some of the consumers do not believe the online marketing; the company should promote the product by marketing campaigns too so that the rest of the consumers can be attracted towards the product. Children and old age consumers are more interested in television. Thus, the company can easily attract them by television. Emotional videos and attractive images help the company in brand positioning as well (Khan, 2014).

The company should use retail channel to distribute Sony A7 Camera. From this channel, the company can reach at the various types of consumers (Steenkamp, 2017). Retail channel makes the buying process easy for the consumers. Consumers always prefer the easy process and due to this channel product is reached at the various consumers. Retail channel is more effective for the consumers as well as the company. The company can distribute the product in bulk but if it directly sells the product to the consumers then it becomes difficult for the company to reach to a consumer. Retailers can communicate with the consumers and influence the consumers for the product which is beneficial for the company. Thus, retailing channel is more appropriate for the company to distribute the sale. Effective communication of retailer helps the company in build the brand positioning in the market (Pike, Gentle, Kelly, and Beatson, 2018).

The company should use the price skimming strategy for boosting the sale of the product. According to this strategy, the company sets the high initial price for a product at the first and then lowers the price after a period of time (Toptal, and Çetinkaya, 2015).  The company should adopt this strategy because the high pricing strategy builds the brand image in the market as compare to the competitors. High price develops the mentality of consumers and believes that product contains the high quality (Jiang, Shang, Liu, and May, 2015). Below table presents the prices of cameras of different brands for a market in India. Indian market is considered here because Sony is a big brand in India and it has a huge customer base in Indian market. Similar pricing strategies can be considered in other parts of the world.

Company	Price (Rs)
Sony	178,587
Samsung (TL210 Point & Shoot Camera)	35,986
Cannon (EOS 3000D DSLR Camera Single Kit with 18-55 lens)	21,990
Nikon D5300	45048

According to the table above, it can be seen that the company has the high price as compared to its competitors.  The price of Sony’s camera is Rs.178, 587 but the other companies sales the product at the lower price such as Samsung sales the camera at Rs. 35,986 (Pfeifer, Farris, Pfeifer, and Farris, 2017).  It states that the company uses the price skimming strategy to boost the sale which is effectively communicating the brand positioning in the market. Below is the snap shot of the marketing mix strategy of the Sony A7SMK camera

Marketing Mix	Current	Recommendation	Why it is recommended
Product	Sony A7SMK, RX 100, WX 100, HX 100, and so on. A range of cameras are manufactured by Sony.	Need to focus on features, include new features, make good packaging, light weight camera and excellent after the sale service. Quality of lenses used must be excellent and additional facility of customisation should be there.	There is a huge competition in the market of Camera, especially when mobile phones are also coming with high quality cameras. In this situation Sony has to bring some other innovation in order to grab the market share.
Place	All over the world	Retailing channel, Online presence is extremely important	E-commerce is the new area where big businesses are flourishing, Sony has to utilise e- commerce at a greater extent.
Promotion	Mainly Television Advertisements	Television, Sales promotion, Main focus on Social media, Offers on purchase of a camera and gifts.	Again Social media and e-commerce is important, people are spending enough time on social media and they prefer purchasing products from e-commerce websites too.
Price	Normal Competitive Pricing	Price Skimming, Competitive Pricing	Competitors are also providing good quality camera and hence Sony needs to take care of competitive pricing along with price skimming.

Conclusion

The company should implement the marketing mix to build the brand positioning in the market. Price, place, promotion and product helps the company in communicating the brand positioning. Promotion strategy of marketing mix helps the company in boosting the sale and attracts the consumer towards the product. The company should design the product as per three different levels because it fulfils the consumer demand and with the best services consumer attracts towards the product. The company promotes the product with the real information and features which states the ethical and social responsibility towards the society. The company organises marketing campaigns to promote the product in which it can explain all the features with the real information and it charges the right price which is right as per the concept of corporate social responsibility. A compliance program is defined the organisation procedure, policies and actions. Standards and procedures are the compliance programme which ensures the action of the company is ethical and socially responsible. Triple Bottom Line Reporting is a perspective that identifies the business performance which is affecting the systems such as economic, social and environmental. The company uses this system to measure the price, quality of product, and real information.

References

Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.

Cross, J.C., Belich, T.J. and Rudelius, W., 2015. How marketing managers use market segmentation: An exploratory study. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 531-536). Springer, Cham.

Datta, H., Ailawadi, K.L. and van Heerde, H.J., 2017. How well does consumer-based brand equity align with sales-based brand equity and marketing-mix response?. Journal of Marketing, 81(3), pp.1-20.

Henkel, A., Boegershausen, J., Aquino, K. and Lemmink, J., 2016. The Undesired Discounting Effect of Budget Brands: How Brand Positioning Affects Perceptions of Customer Service Representatives’ Human Qualities. ACR North American Advances.

Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer, New York, NY.

Jiang, Y., Shang, J., Liu, Y. and May, J., 2015. Redesigning promotion strategy for e-commerce competitiveness through pricing and recommendation. International Journal of Production Economics, 167, pp.257-270.

Khan, M.T., 2014. The concept of'marketing mix'and its elements (a conceptual review paper). International journal of information, business and management, 6(2), p.95.

Pfeifer, P.E., Farris, P.W., Pfeifer, P.E. and Farris, P.W., 2017. Problems in Pricing. Darden Business Publishing Cases, pp.1-3.

Pike, S., Gentle, J., Kelly, L. and Beatson, A., 2018. Tracking brand positioning for an emerging destination: 2003 to 2015. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 18(3), pp.286-296.

Solomon, M.R., Dahl, D.W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J.L. and Polegato, R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.

Steenkamp, J.B., 2017. Global Marketing Mix Decisions: Global Integration, Not Standardization. In Global Brand Strategy (pp. 75-109). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Thach, L. and Olsen, J., 2015. Profiling the high frequency wine consumer by price segmentation in the US market. Wine Economics and Policy, 4(1), pp.53-59.

Toptal, A. and Çetinkaya, S., 2015. The impact of price skimming on supply and exit decisions. Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, 31(4), pp.551-574.

Wei, Y.S., Samiee, S. and Lee, R.P., 2014. The influence of organic organizational cultures, market responsiveness, and product strategy on firm performance in an emerging market. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 42(1), pp.49-70.