International Marketing Strategy for Lush Company: Case Study Analysis

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

1. Demonstrate critical understanding of the scope of international marketing

4. Critically evaluate a range of contemporary developments in international marketing and their application to international marketing practice.

The case study

The Lush Company internationally, see separate file for the case study on Blackboard.

The questions

Question 1 – Which Country/Market and When?  (20% weight)

Given a critical review of Lush’s country/market internationally. Which country/market would you consider for new entry or further expansion? Why would you consider it to be suitable?  Give a critical evaluation.

Question 2 – Cultural Differences (20% weight)

Cultural differences in marketing should receive primary attention when selling goods or services internationally, as the cultural environment changes from one country to the other. This means that companies must understand the culture of a specific country/market, but the question is how?

Question 3 – Product (20% weight)

What advice would you give the company in terms of standardisation and adaptation for its international markets? Give a critical evaluation. Are there any other factors that should be considered? For example: price.

Question 4 – Promotion (20% weight)

What should the future promotion strategy be? Consider: advertising, sales promotion public relations and digital/social media. Should they now introduce more conventional promotion or stay with in-store and word-of-mouth?

What will your budget be overall? Give an outline of specific activities within the promotion campaign that you think will be effective. Are there any country differences which will mean adapting the promotion, or can a standardised promotion be used?

Question 5 – Entry strategy (20% weight)

What would be the most suitable foreign entry method? It is expensive to set up production and to move raw material and finished products around the world. How far can local manufacturing within the country of sale be used to achieve this? Is it best to manage the production in-house, or contract out? Give a critical evaluation.

Given that there are many possibilities should Lush concentrate on opening more high footfall stores of its own in the high street, or should it focus more on key transport locations at e.g. airports and railway stations, or upon taking up the franchise space?

Guidance

· All questions should be answered, make sure that you clearly head each question in your work

· Use Harvard referencing system

· Use both business (e.g. market and country reports from reliable sources) and academic (e.g. text books and articles in academic journals) sources to support your discussion

· Gives a critical discussion and practical advice, underpinned by a good understanding of theory and practice

· Consider marketing models/tools such as PEST/SWOT, BCG Matrix, Cultural Dimensions, and Marketing Mix as a base to support your analysis and these may be included either in main text or as appendices. You will need to apply these to the case, not just present the models.

· Monitor and critically evaluate developments in the international business environment and apply these to the international marketing situation – 25%

· Search for, select and use effectively relevant data and information – 25%

· Develop ideas for a company’s future international marketing strategy – 25%

· Use theories and models of marketing in the international situation to underpin your ideas – 25%

· Have clear presentation with good layout on the page, clear language and good grammar and proof reading (Up to 5% marks will be deducted for poor presentation)

· Reference correctly using the Harvard system (Up to 5% marks will be deducted for poor referencing)