Producing Narrated Infographic Poster to Enter National Market

Requirements for Narrated Infographic Poster

You are required to produce a narrated infographic poster providing key information on the national market you have chosen, and the organisation chosen to enter that market for the first time. (NB: for the purposes of this task, you are permitted to pretend that the organisation is not already present in a specific country, even if this is not the case in real life.)

Please create the poster on one single Powerpoint slide (or create it in another file format before pasting it onto one single Powerpoint slide).

Include a commentary of no more than five minutes. Please embed this within the Powerpoint file. This may be done by selecting ‘Slide Show’ and ‘Record Slide Show’. Please disable the video option by clicking the camera icon (in the bottom right-hand side of the screen), so that your commentary is audio only.

Please submit your narrated infographic poster electronically to the relevantly labelled submission folder on the module Blackboard site. Deadlines will be communicated via Blackboard announcement.

You may choose any organisation but NOT any of the following ones, which will be used by lecturers throughout the module to contextualise theory, or are included in

You are required to undertake a 2,000-word Market Plan Business Report, using the same organisation and proposed market/s which you used for the Infographic Poster.

Please submit your business report electronically to the relevantly labelled submission folder on the module Blackboard site. Deadlines will be communicated via Blackboard announcement.

Section 1 (40% of the Market Plan Business Report marks): Critical evaluation of an organisation in one or more established markets

Section 1 accounts for 40% of the Market Plan Business Report marks, and therefore the recommended word count is around 800 words, but at your discretion as long as the total word count for the report is observed.

• Identify an organisation which is strong and established in one or more markets.
• Analyse why it is currently strong in its home market / country of origin, referring to its brand, products and/or services, marketing communications mix, use of media, Relationship Marketing strategies, and any other elements of its identity or operations which you feel relevant to its success.
• In particular, refer to its meaning towards, and relationships with, its customers.
• When analysing the organisation, use theories and academic sources critically.
• Provide commercial context underpinned by industrial sources (i.e. – information which is already in the public domain).
• Do not undertake any primary research (i.e. – do not contact the organisation or its stakeholders).

Section 2 (60% of the Business Report marks): Proposal of strategies to enter a new market

Section 2 accounts for 60% of the Market Plan Business Report marks, and therefore the recommended word count is around 1,200 words, but at your discretion as long as the total word count for the report is observed.

• Propose strategies for your chosen organisation to use when entering one specific country for the first time. (NB: for the purposes of this task, you are permitted to pretend that the organisation is not already present in a specific country, even if this is not the case in real life.)
• Consider the needs and characteristics of this target market – in particular its consumers.
• Explain how these might differ from the needs and characteristics of the consumers it is currently selling to in its home market / country of origin.
• Use theory and academic sources critically to underpin your recommendations.
• Wherever possible, compare alternative strategies which you chose to discard with those which you chose to adopt, explaining their relative merits in the context of your organisation.
• When explaining your rationale, say what effects the recommended strategies might have upon the organisation, its brand, its performance, and its commercial sustainability – but also the effects upon the targeted consumers in the new market.

Advice on undertaking the Market Plan Business Report

As this is a report, it should not be presented in essay format.

You should use full sentences and paragraphs, and be fluent, grammatically correct, balanced and critical.

In-text citations should be used to substantiate ideas and show sources, and a reference list should be provided at the end of the document.

Choice of Brand

Include relevant tables, graphs, diagrams, photos and screenshots to illustrate what you are writing, and to evidence what the brand is doing – please place these in the main body of the report, not as an appendix.

• Say what the organisation does
• But do not just describe
• Analyse, compare and contrast
• Say why it does those things
• Say what works well and what works less well – judge quality
• Say why – give commercial and especially theoretical reasons for your judgments
• Be balanced. Criticise gently and tentatively. Few things are black and white – most are shades of grey
• Suggest possible organisational solutions and responses
• Explore relationships between themes, actions and strategies
• Try to assess situations / problems / the brand from multiple standpoints
• Assess the organisation and its actions in the context of its customers and stakeholders – how do the organisation’s choices / strategies / actions affect those entities?
• Consider how the strategy is contributing to the organisation through its performance
• How does the organisation fare in an ethical and societal context?
• Consider the sustainability of the organisation – not just how it competes now, but how it will survive and prosper in the future
• Draw conclusions and make recommendations

Sources should be used to substantiate statements, underpin rationale or analysis, and demonstrate commercial or theoretical awareness, rather than being added arbitrarily.

• Individual task
• No collusion or plagiarism – please refer to ARTA regulations on the Northumbria University website if unsure
• May be submitted on Word or pdf file
• Please use 11 point Times New Roman, 1.5 line spaced, standard margin width, with both margins justified (i.e. – squared off)
• Be creative and critical. Be original in your brand choice
• Deadlines and submission process will be communicated by Blackboard announcement, which will generate an email to you.

Any academic judgments not stipulated in the brief, the ARTA regulations, or the mark scheme are at your discretion, therefore you should not need to seek clarification of any such points.

If we have not expressly stated in the brief that you must, or must not, do something, we have deliberately chosen not to guide you in that choice - we would like to see what you do independently, rather than us providing a suggestion, to ensure the integrity and fairness of the assessment.

All necessary advice is provided in this document, and discussed at length in specific lectures and seminars.

To ensure fairness and consistency of advice across the cohort, please bring any queries to the above sessions so that all students can benefit equally from any advice given, rather than sending emails.

If you feel unable to raise your query in class, please attend one of the Module Leader drop-in guidance sessions, the schedule for which will be announced on Blackboard.

After submission, the university targets 20 working days for the work to be marked, internally and externally moderated, and the provisional marks communicated to students.

The module marking team will record marks and feedback on Blackboard. (NB: staff sickness or other unforeseeable events may delay this in an extremely small number of cases.

Work submitted late with authorisation due to a PEC or DSSR are also subject to the 20 working day target, and may therefore be marked later than other work.)

These marks are provisional until they have been taken through the academic boards to be confirmed/changed, after which point the university will communicate mark profiles to students via MyNorthumbria.

If at that point you have failed the module, you should refer to the university’s written instructions to ascertain whether or not you are permitted/required to resit the assessment or part thereof.

If in any doubt on this, you should discuss with your Programme Leader. If you need reassessment, this is non-synoptic (i.e. – you can resubmit one of the assessed components rather than both if required).

Where coursework is submitted without approval, after the published hand-in deadline, the following penalties will apply:

For coursework submitted up to 1 working day (24 hours) after the published hand-in deadline without approval, 10% of the total marks available for the assessment (i.e. - 100%) shall be deducted from the assessment mark.

For clarity: a late piece of work that would have scored 65%, 55% or 45% had it been handed in on time will be awarded 55%, 45% or 35% respectively as 10% of the total available marks will have been deducted.

Coursework submitted more than 1 working day (24 hours) after the published hand-in deadline without approval will be regarded as not having been completed and a mark of zero will be awarded for that assessment task.

These provisions apply to all assessments, including those assessed on a Pass/Fail basis.

If the assignment is within +10% of the stated word limit no penalty will apply.

The word count is to be declared on the front page of your assignment and the assignment cover sheet.  The word count does not include:

If this word count is falsified, students are reminded that under ARTA this will be regarded as academic misconduct.

If the word limit of the full assignment exceeds the +10% limit, 10% of the mark provisionally awarded to the assignment will be deducted. 

For example: if the assignment is worth 70 marks but is above the word limit by more than 10%, a penalty of 7 marks will be imposed, giving a final mark of 63.

Students must retain an electronic copy of this assignment (including ALL appendices) and it must be made available within 24hours of them requesting it be submitted.