ASSIGNMENT 1: Please read Chapters 1 and 2 of Kotler and Armstrong and answer the following:

1. Let’s take a quick look at the 'About Zappos' page on the company’s Web site and see what we can
glean about the company and how it operates. Just looking at this Web page, what stands out about
Zappos?

2.How has this site contributed to Zappos’ performance? Has Zappos been successful? Why?

3.How does this opening story relate to the major points made in the rest of the chapter?

Zappos

First looking into the about us page of Zappos, is that the website isn’t only about making money. We
can see firsthand that this is a lively business that really puts its own values in high regards. Once you
enter the site, you even get a message about recent events and why Black Lives Matter.

Looking into the page you will see that their focus is on customer service and how they go about
achieving it by first making their employees happy. Zappos wants to offer the best customer service they
can with a smile and that shows through their employees. The success of Zappos can be tracked back to
this, and also with their market segmentation.

Zappos stuck to the market of ecommerce, as we have noticed the market shifting more and more onto
the online setup, Zappos took advantage of this and offered the ease of shopping through your devices.
Let us look into the 4Ps and how Zappos tackled this marketing mix.

Price – Zappos doesn’t offer the lowest prices but as we noticed, this hasn’t stopped their sales from
growing. Zappos has a lot of repeat customers and this can be contributed to not only excellent
customer service but excellent quality of their products.

Product – First starting off with footwear, Zappos grew into accessories and apparel, offering the best
quality products, and if ever there were defects or mistaken product colors, etc. their customer service
is always on point to help aid in return/replacement of their products.

Place – ease of shopping, you do not need to go to a physical store anymore. Zappos concentrated solely
in ecommerce and showed us how easy shopping can be through our devices.

Promotion – it isn’t just business with Zappos, they hold very strong values and this shows on how they
treat their customers. Zappos took over the digital market with aggressive marketing through social
media accounts and at the same time using pull techniques such as video marketing and discounts or
coupons.

Zappos looked into how they can create value in their customers, with proper customer service, their
customers now keep coming back because of it. Its true that there are many competitors towards
Zappos now, but they had secured their brand recognition. When people see Zappos, they think of
excellent quality products and good customer service, this was how they are able to differentiate
themselves from their competitors.
ASSIGNMENT 2:

1. Why is it important to truly understand the customer?

First of all, marketing is about creating value for customers and building strong relationships with them.
How is this accomplished? By truly understanding the customer.

There are many ways to go about this and it all starts with basic understanding of the needs and wants
of customers and going through it with a lot of research. Market research such as surveys and looking
into statistics such as daily spending habits of customers and which sector they prioritize their spending
on, is important as this will help you understand the current trend in a specific target market.

Some of the important questions you should be asking yourself are (1) what kind of customers are you
looking to serve, (2) what is the best possible way to serve these customers, how can you create
something of value to them that they will consider, and how can you keep them around? (3) What are
your competitors, what are their current strategies?

These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself and as we notice, we need to
concentrate heavily on your customer and what they want. This will help you in designing the perfect
marketing plan to cater to them. For example, you are in the market for cosmetics and have targeted
females from the ages 17-20. Current research has shown that potential customers are shifting towards
purchasing cosmetics that are animal cruelty free. Knowing this will help you design the perfect
marketing plan, such as pulling techniques such as advertisements that focus on showing off your
cosmetics being tested without the use of animals.

Overall, truly understanding the customer will give you the best information that you will need in able to
develop a stable and effective marketing plan.

2. Think of a product or brand to which you are loyal. What has caused this loyalty? What could a
competing product/brand do to break this loyalty?

Let us look into this as a new business entering the market. We start off with the proper market
research. Under here we will find what market segmentation we will target, and what our current
competitors are. Most businesses entering the market will always look at existing competitors. What are
they doing to retain their customers? How are they creating value for their customers? As we all know,
innovation is the backbone of every entrepreneur, so as we look into the details which we just
discussed, let us look to how we can differentiate our business from our competitors in the existing
market.

There are many ways to go about this, if the product or service is versatile, you can try aiming for a
different market segment, let’s say the product/service currently offered by competitors are priced low
aiming towards lower class customers. You can differentiate your product or service by bringing up the
quality of the product/service and offer it as an exclusive product. It will all depend on how properly you
market the product.

For example, we have Ice Cream, there are a lot of different brand ice cream in the Philippines. Now we
have a new competitor entering the market, Magnum Ice Cream. This more expensive priced ice cream
was able to compete with other brands and how is that possible? With proper marketing, they burned
an image of their brand into their customers, an image that shows that Magnum was an exclusive ice
cream with quality ingredients, from celebrity endorsers to marketing its ingredients such as the
chocolate being Belgium chocolate, they were able to hit a different target market for their product,
making their ice cream brand one to compete with. Aside from differentiation you can also win over
your competitors with better customer service, showing that you value your customers more, more
aggressive push and pull strategies such as a recycling campaign for your plastic bottled drinks. Hitting
the market in the proper time where demand is high. There are so many strategies you can formulate to
directly compete with your competitors, and it all starts with first understanding the current market’s
needs and your competitors as well.