Sustainable Marketing: A Case Study Of Tengri Essay.

Consider the case of Tengri : Identify the marketing mix of this organisation.

Explanation of the case and synthesis with the theory: Consider the product, promotion, distribution and pricing strategy of this organisation.

Analysis of the situation: Provide a positioning analysis of the organisation against its competitors.

Identify, with reference to at least 20 academic journal articles the sustainable marketing principles Tengri is following and whether this strategy is successful or could be improved by following other principles.

Background of Tengri

In the present environment of development, the word ‘sustainable’ just not talk about being green but by reducing the utilization of material and financial resources will help the planet as well as increase the profit of the company (Cuculesk, Mircevska, and Petrovska, 2016). At the services of Sustainable Marketing, the main core philosophy is to attain long-term growth for business by optimizing the utilization of the resources of marketing through good strategy and implementation (Hsiao, 2013). For every business, essential requirements should be placed on constructing an organization with help of appropriate resources of marketing and skills, to confirm high-performance marketing that provides outcomes and attain long-term growth. Whether business possesses an internal team, a subcontracted team, or mixture of both, organizing the team of marketing deliberately with the perfect blend of ability sets appropriately fit the marketing type and growth stage of the business, is serious. It permits business to make use of human and financial resources more commendably (Noo-urai and Jaroenwisan, 2016).

This report will talk about the sustainable marketing used by a business i.e. Tengri to prevent the rights of herder families in Mongolia and offer good quality of products at a reasonable cost. The resources and strategies used by Tengri Company for successful survival in the market will be discussed in this report. Besides this, the report will discuss the positioning of the company in the market in comparison to its competitor.

The idea behind establishing Tengri in the market was perceived by Nancy Johnston, who is a social entrepreneur. She framed this idea when she was on a tour with her friends and residing with herder people in Mongolia. Nancy was fascinated by the gentle and intertwined connection between animals, land, and people, emerging a deeper knowledge and respect for the connection between the herder people’s livings, their yaks, and the Mongolian landscape (Tengri, 2018). This experience encouraged Nancy to establish Tengri. Equipped with just as pen and wrapper of chocolate, she inscribed her first every business plan in a faintly lit Ger. She went back to London, with the support of her savings and friends in community development, business, fashion, product development, design, marketing, and product development she introduced Tengri (Tengri, 2018).

Tengri is a brand of London, submerged in worldwide inheritance. It operates in Mongolian yak fiber and but their material directly from the companies that signify around 4,500 nomadic herder families. In order to carry yak fiber of Mongolian in front of the worldwide textile and fashion industries, Nancy established Tengri as a community business conjointly with herders. This reflects that they have fair-trading, pay premium prices to the Mongolian companies for their fibers and profits are shared which is part of their business model (Tengri, 2018).

Vision of Tengri

The vision of Tengri is to become the leading company focused towards the development and growth of Mongolian people. Offering best quality of fiber in the market is one of the objectives of the company. Tengri was established when the founder got encouraged and amazed by seeing the bond and relationship between people in Mongolian, which reflects that company also want to spread the message of integrity and love among people by selling its products in the market (Tengri Holding, 2018).  

Mission of Tengri

Mission and Vision of Tengri

The mission of the company is to offer best quality products designed with noble fiber. Besides this, it wants to support herder’s families and Mongolian companies to increase their income for attaining a good standard of living (Tengri Holding, 2018). 100% transparent and traceable supply chain of Tengri confirms the reliability of yarns and garments, which are obtained and produced honorably and sustainably (Tengri, 2018). The motive of the company is to minimize the wastage and save the environment, therefore, it has adopted an innovative approach of designing, and manufacturing innovative products made up of valuable by-product fiber, to back the living of their suppliers (Tengri, 2018).

The marketing mix is the set of tactics and actions that are used by the business to advertise its products and services in the marketplace. The marketing mix is comprised of 4Ps i.e. Product, Price, Place, and, Promotion (Richter, 2012). Based on the industry and the marketing plan objective, managers of marketing might take different approaches for each P. The word Marketing Mix is credited to Neil Bordon (Anusha, 2016). It is named as marketing mix due to its suggestive nature about the ways that must be adopted marketers to mix different elements i.e. place, product, promotion, and price to make an applicable offering to the consumer (Išorait?, 2016). The aim of the marketing is to increase the awareness of the target audience of the product. The use of McCarthy’s approach encourages marketers to enhance the emphasis on the spectators they hope to get influence with their ad (Constantinides, 2006). A marketing mix supports business to take strategic decisions while introducing new products or updating existing products. Moreover, the marketing mix components are dependent stages, all features of the procedure should be measured throughout the product lifecycle (Supaartagorn, 2017).

Source [(Vector Stock, 2018)]

Product

The product is a service or item created to satisfy the wants and needs of the customer. It should provide a minimum performance level, or else, best work done on any other factor of marketing mix will not provide any benefit to the business (Bhuiyan, 2011). Marketing research starts with the development phase of the product, which separates an evolving opportunity for a fresh product to meet the demands of the market. The product can be a new offering that satisfies the increasing needs of the customer or can be an updated product that has vanished traction with patrons because of inferior functionality, obsolescence, or age. The manager of marketing should identify the needs of the customer in detail that are being satisfied by the product, the life cycle, the resources essential to creating the service or goods and its attractiveness in the market (Hakala, Latti and Sandberg, 2015).

Tengri is a company that was established by one of the social entrepreneurs who got amazed by seeing the relationship between people, and animal of Mongolians (Tengri, 2018). Nancy the founder of the company identified the Khangai Yak native wild types found in the Mountains of Khangai of Mongolia could support in conserving this drifting way of life. These animals provision biodiversity and support in preventing land desertification by permitting species of plant and wildlife to restore and flourish (Tengri, 2018).

Marketing Mix

Tengri is more than gorgeously made woolens. They substitute cross-cultural learning and employment opportunities for trifling businesses in Mongolia and pursue to recover the living standard of Mongolian itinerant herders while shielding the unique and beautiful landscape of the country and pastures (Tengri, 2018).

Tengri deals with purchasing noble fiber from the herders and supply them by adding value those with the help of advanced technology. The company put its efforts to make premium yarns for the manufacturing of luxury products. Besides this, the company is focused towards increasing the livelihood and enhancing the living standards of herder's families and industries (Tengri, 2018).

Price

Price is the amount of money for the product and highlights what a customer is ready to pay. In order words, a value has been charged in exchange for the product. It is based on the production costs, the target market, the capability of the market, demand and supply, and host of other indirect and direct factors (Faith and Edwin, 2014). There could be different kinds of strategies for pricing. This factor of marketing mix could also be utilized as a delineation, to distinguish and improve the product image. Research in marketing is essential to recognize a price that the customer will pay while enhancing the investment return. Competitiveness based on price is another important concern. Different strategies of price marketing help in establishing product in the market at diminished prices to form brand visibility and market share, and later increase prices after the successful establishment of the product (Toni, D.D., Milan and Saciloto, 2017).

Tengri purchases Yak Noble fiber from herders at very affordable prices. After purchasing the fiber from Herders, company add value to the product with the help of innovative technologies and supply to selected global partners for the manufacturing of luxury products at a premium price (Tengri, 2018). Khangai Yak is limited and rare on the worldwide market; therefore, they sell comparatively low quantities at superior price points to preserve strong product variation by using a diverse model of business (Johnston, 2017). Premium price strategy is the practice of maintaining the product or service price high to inspire favorable views among customers, based on price (Deshpande, 2018).

Place

Place or distribution talks about the location where the product is sold. The careful thought of the kind of product vendor is valuable when defining distribution areas (Pour, Nazari and Emami, 2013). In other words, the place is referred to as the point of sale. In all the industries, catching the attention of the customers and making it simple for them to purchase it is one of the key purposes of a place or distribution strategy. Retailers pay premium prices for getting the correct location. Various strategies of distribution are present such as exclusive, franchising, selective, and intensive, methods. The location constituent contains different factors such as training, franchising, and sales personnel fees (Adewale and Oyewale, 2013).

Source [(Tengri, 2018)]

Tengri makes use of direct distribution channel since it directly purchases noble fiber from two Mongolia herder cooperatives. It makes use of technological innovation for adding value to the fiber and supply to selected global partners for manufacturing luxury products. The selected partners of Tengri are bespoke tailors, heritage manufacturers, and hand knitters who make final products with the help of quality craftsmanship for adding extra value. The company possesses a restricted as well as the limited intensity of distribution due to the rare nature of Khangai Yak fiber (Tengri, 2018).  

Promotion

Product

Promotion is said to be a joint campaign of marketing, known as the promotional mix, utilized for the product promotion. Activities of promotion comprise sales promotion, public relations, advertising, direct marketing, and personal selling (Narasimhan, 2014). In other words, promotion is considered as all the activities performed by the business to make customers aware of the service or product. It is dependent on the marketers to choose the platform for marketing that will offer most operative communication means the advertising message (Cui, Yang and Chou, 2016). Promotion usually tracks the placement and pricing decisions, to include that info in the ads. Marketing research performs a huge part in this factor because of the need to pay for advertisement ads that will increase the optimal response of the customers. Hence, professionals of marketing should identify the weaknesses and strengths of different strategies for promotion, recognize needs of the customer, and accordingly modify the campaign of marketing (Familmalek, Aghighi, and Hamid, 2015).

Tengri makes use of different modes of communication in order to make customers aware of its operations and products. Advertisement performs an essential part while promoting the products of Tengri. Social Media and Television are majorly utilized to reflect the quality of the yarn they use to produce a fiber with the help of technological innovation. By advertising hairs of yak as Tengri noble yarns, though luxury brand which is attractive to discriminating fashion customers and signifies their ‘fair share' model of business (Johnston, 2017). Besides this, it also uses direct marketing to target the customers individually with the help of catalogs, e-mail, website, and application. All the businesses need public relations however, numerous businesses mostly avoid it as they normally link it with dealing with undesirable conditions that can disturb a company. Nevertheless, Tengri makes use of public relation strategy of promotional mix to emotionally connect with the customers and increase revenue. It reflects its positive actions towards contributing for the better livelihood of herder's families. Tengri also highlights that their noble yarns offer customers an option a sustainable choice to the environmentally damaging cashmere industry deprived of negotiating on morals, quality, or aesthetics (Johnston, 2017).

Positioning analysis is a procedure for evaluating how a current brand of the company is observed by the market. When recognizing target market chances, a business needs to associate the method its brand is perceived with the requirement of the target market (Manhas, 2010). A position is an approach a brand of the company fits into the market segment that has been targeted in comparison to the competitors. Businesses put its maximum efforts to established distinguished benefits of the brand to stand out from the rivals. Eventually, consumers take a decision about the benefits and performance of the brand as compared to its competitors present in the target market (Chowdhury, 2013).  

Tengri has been established in the market to support herder's families and cooperation by purchasing yarn of the Khangai Yak at very reasonable cost. This encourages natives to work hard and exert their skills in the extraction of yarn. Tengri has been positioned as one of the premium brands of quality fiber used to design different luxury products and a socially responsible organization. Shokay is one of the competitors of Tengri who is also a socially responsible brand of textiles, which make use of Tibetan yak down. They balance fibers with low prices like wool, cotton, and bamboo in their goods (Johnston, 2017). Unlike Shokay, Tengri started its operation directly with herders as a joint venture. The mountain yaks of Khangai are one of the rare and diverse species as compared to those of China and Tibet that are available at volume. The yak of Khangai is limited on the worldwide market, where the company sells comparatively fewer quantities at higher prices to balance strong differentiation of the product while utilizing a diverse business model (Johnston, 2017).       

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it could be posited that Tengri is comprised of skilled and experienced workforce that design, enhance, and introduce different strategies as well as create products for the customers. One of the social entrepreneurs that are Nancy Johnston to support herder families in Mongolia founded Tengri. It planned to directly purchase the yarn from these families and supply to selected global partners for creating luxury products. It would support families to earn a livelihood and survive on the planet. Moreover, it has also been identified that Tengri gets the yarn of the rare species of yak in the world i.e. Khangai Yak to produce fiber, due to this it has adopted a premium price policy for the trading of products. The company possesses limited distribution intensity due to the rare nature of its yarn. The advertisement is one of the essential parts for establishing a product in the market; therefore, Tengri makes use of advertisement, direct marketing, and public relation to increase the awareness among target audience about the products. Moreover, the company has gained an exclusive position in the market as compared to its competitors due to the hairs of rare Khangai Yak for creating products. Along with this, the premium prices of the products also differentiate Tengri from its competitor such as Shokay.     

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