group project of MKTG410

Final Group Project

Walmart

 Julia Madrid

Mou Zhang

Nawaf Alhayef

 Nora Perez Ruiz

Rosa Servin

*** Rosa: Hi guys, I added almost 2 pages for the Diversity Assignment, let me know what you think and below I will add a little on the Walmart project too.  

McDonald’s – Diversity Assignment

Rosa: People need culture to have a way to express our human intellectual achievements that we usually belong to together as a group. Every person has a specific skill, talent, or grew up in an atmosphere where it taught them a particular custom, type of art or around different social institutions and all this shape us in various ways and it changed how our life will progress. Throughout this process of living, we belong to many different subcultures, some of which stay the same, and others like the age bracket changes with time. Subcultures are not only based on our age but also on race, ethnic background, and place of residence. Especially in today’s modern world where traveling and relocating is so much easier for most of us, than it was years ago, to be able to keep a specific culture pure is hard, because the world is a big “melting pot”, when a person moves to a new location and blends in some of their experiences and traditions with others around them, subcultures change and reshape. Age is usually an easier factor to explore when trying to segment a group of people, but usually, that also depends on where the person grew up as well. The specific age range people fit in together often means they think alike on specific subjects, they share memories, experiences and all this brings a certain nostalgic appeal, which marketers can target easily.

When a company starts small and builds its business in a small community, they usually tailor it to this specific group of people and their culture. When it is time for this company and its product or service to expand beyond the local level, into new regions, countries and the cultures that accompany them, then it becomes extremely important what message their product conveys to their specific target audience. We have all heard many cringe-worthy examples of businesses not adjusting their brand message or advertisements to the new market’s language, dialect or subcultures, and resulting in some embarrassing situations that in some cases are never forgotten, especially in those social media times. To be able to truly implement multicultural marketing that promotes brand awareness and loyalty, repackaging a product or translating a message into the native language is not enough, the company needs to find an authentic way to speak directly to that specific subculture. A giant company that proven successful in this category and many more throughout the years is the 79-year-old fast-food chain, with locations in more than a hundred countries – McDonald’s.

People want to see their lives reflected by a brand, and a thriving business needs to be able to include its customers by engaging them and creating a message that resonates with the locals. Marketing is evolving and becoming more and more multicultural. McDonald’s has been trying to evolve with the times and become more of what people need and want. For instance, in April 2019 Lizette Williams, the head of cultural engagement, a newly created position, which also speaks about the importance the company puts on the changing world, developed “a positive campaign aimed at uplifting and inspiring excellence in the Black community.” (Sparks, 2019) McDonald’s understands that in order to be able to continue to be relevant and be a leading, widely well-recognized brand they need to evolve together with the consumer.

Another example is McDonald’s efforts to target the Hispanic population, which is America’s largest ethnic group and has a great purchasing power. Even though they already are proven to prefer McDonald’s as their fast food option, the company still spares no expenses on measured media on Spanish-language networks and courting the Hispanic culture.

 Resource TO USE: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/317681/3-lessons-learned-from-mcdonalds-latest-hispanic.html

https://abasto.com/en/news/mcdonalds-el-chapulin-colorado/

 

 

Crowl, Jonathan. “How to Shape a Multicultural Marketing Strategy.” The Content Standard by Skyword, 15 Oct. 2019, www.skyword.com/contentstandard/marketing/how-to-shape-a-multicultural-marketing-strategy/ .

Kordrostami, Melika, and Michael R. Solomon. “MKTG 410-02 Consumer Behavior/Buying, Having, and Being Textbook.” Chapter 13 Subcultures. 2019.

Sparks, Cassidy. “McDonald's Lizette Williams Shifts Multicultural Marketing with New Campaign.” Rolling Out, Entrepreneurs & Business Leaders, 24 Apr. 2019, rollingout.com/2019/04/14/mcdonalds-lizette-williams-shifts-multicultural-marketing-with-new-campaign/.

Morrison, Maureen. “Wendy's Last Among Big Burger Chains With Hispanics: Survey.” AdAge, 29 May 2013, adage.com/article/news/wendy-s-big-burger-chains-hispanics-survey/241715.

 

 

 

Group Project – Walmart

* The project requires each team to develop a well-detailed and supported profile of consumers of some product or service to be selected by the team members. In order to understand consumers, it is necessary:

(1) To describe them in terms of demographics and lifestyles, and identify a useful basis (or bases) for segmenting the market

(2) To highlight those factors that affect consumer's perception of the product consumption

(3) To understand the impact of learning on consumption

(4) To determine how consumers attitudes form and change by marketing communication activities of the company

(5) To explicate the nature of the typical purchase decision process for the product category

Rosa: The success of every business, company, organization, or retail depends on how many customers they are able to sell their product or service. We all know that but do we all understand what it takes or how much effort it takes to be able to convince the consumer to even consider your product in this modern, dense with competition world?! Businesses spend a good amount of time and money to psychological research of their ideal consumer, they need to know what people buy and why, the consumer’s identity, social status, decision-making process, and so much more additional information. Customers, on the other hand, want companies to understand them and offer them the best product they need and want for the best price they can afford, and obviously Walmart is doing a great job at that, considering they are number one on the Fortune 500 list and for the sixth year in a row. 

Demographics is one of the oldest and widely used ways to segment the consumer base, it is been around for so long that businesses nowadays are starting to forget about it and try to move on to more modern and interesting approaches. But there is a reason why Walmart still relies heavily on this aspect of segmentation. The world is changing, families are not what they used to be, fertility rates are declining, the age and income distribution are shifting, and all of this is affecting the businesses. The decreasing birth rate and more and more people deciding to have fewer kids or none at all means fewer people shopping. Another interesting point is that the younger generations’ lives are completely different than the baby boomers, they used to have more buying power, more opportunities and less debt, so they were able to spend more money shopping. The population is aging, there will be over 60 million people over the age of 65 in the next five years, and unfortunately, a lot of retailers fail to notice this fact, adjust their target audience and stop favoring the 24-to-44 age demographic.