BM Assignment: 3 tasks, 3000 words. Please read instructions carefully.

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EduQual Diploma in Business and Marketing Management (SCQF Level 8) COMBINED ASSIGNMENT FOUR: Marketing Communications, Marketing Planning and Consumer Behaviour

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Contents

Assessment Guidelines 2

Context 2

Confidentiality 2

Assessment Criteria and Mark Sheets 2

Tutor Guidance 2

Word Count 2

Referencing and Professionalism 3

Plagiarism and Collusion 3

Combined Assignment 4: Marketing Communications, Marketing Planning and Consumer Behaviour 4

Task 1 4

Task 2 4

Task 3 5

Assignment Word Count 5

Combined Assignment 4: Criteria and Mark Scheme 6

Assessment Criteria for all Assessments 9

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Assessment Guidelines Learners of EduQual qualifications must complete the tasks given in the assignment brief approved by EduQual. Learners are able to request assistance from tutors about completing the tasks, mark schemes and grade descriptors. Learners are expected to adhere to policies and guidelines set out by the centre, which includes word/page/slide count and plagiarism/collusion.

Context Learners are required to refer to the guidance notes and assignment brief in order to present an answer that would fall within the required context.

Confidentiality Learners must seek permission and advice when using organisational/business information that would be considered sensitive or confidential within their assignments. If the organisation’s consent is given, and anonymity is a given requirement of the organisation, then the learner must respect this.

Assessment Criteria and Mark Sheets The assignment brief will include the mark scheme along with grade descriptors for learners to refer to if needed. The guidance notes before the assignment questions should be used for reference in order to ensure that learners are equipped with the information and formats required. Learners are requested to obtain necessary advice on assignment context, format and other supporting information to clarify and help understand the requirements.

The assessment criteria and the mark sheets will help learners identify how and where the marks have been allocated and allow them to structure their answers accordingly. Please note that learners must achieve a minimum of 40% of the marks allocated for each task and that the average mark awarded to all tasks of an assignment must be a minimum of 40% of the overall marks awarded.

Tutor Guidance Learners are allowed one piece of feedback for draft answers they present. Any subject-related questions relating to the module can also be directed to the tutor.

Word Count It is mandatory that learners adhere to the specified word count given in the assignment brief within a margin of -/+10%. For certain tasks, the assignment brief may specify the page count depending on the task requirement and, although a word count may not always be applicable for these, the page count must be adhered to at all times. All tables, charts, diagrams, referencing (in-text) will be considered a part of the assignment word count. If the task requires learners to make a presentation, the word count will only be applicable to the notes provided. The assignment questions may also specify the number of slides, in which case the learners are also required to adhere to this.

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Any supporting documents used to reinforce a learner’s answer need to be attached at the end of the report as appendices. Such supplementary material will equip the examiner with the required background knowledge on the information provided within the report. However, these will not be considered for grading nor as part of the word/page count.

All assignments submitted with clear disregard for the stipulated page/word counts may be discounted, and the learners may have to resubmit his/her work for assessment pending revision/review of their work.

Referencing and Professionalism To ensure that they follow a professional stance at all times, learners must:

 Use the Harvard system of referencing for all citations and references (including in-text)

 Use professional, formal English in presenting their work

 Refrain from writing in a first-person perspective (i.e. ‘I’, ‘We’, ‘Me’, etc. should not be used within the answer).

Learners should bear in mind that marks are awarded for professional format and presentation, and that considerable marks can be awarded for validity and quality of referencing. Therefore, referencing and professionalism will be assessed in every task.

Plagiarism and Collusion Plagiarism and collusion will be considered an academic offence and will be dealt with as a serious issue.

Plagiarism can be defined as: the presentation of the work of another author without appropriate referencing and/or attribution (leading to the false assumption that the learner is the originator of the text).

Collusion can be defined as a circumstance in which: two or more learners present work with distinct similarities in concept and ideas.

Learners must have access to valid plagiarism software (i.e. Turnitin) to assess ‘similarity index’ between their work and work that has been published elsewhere. This Turnitin report must be submitted along with their final assignment scripts for reference purposes.1

Excessive referencing (i.e. where unneeded/irrelevant) will also be considered an academic offence, which will lead to learners being penalised in marks awarded for structure and format of their work or, in serious cases, leading to the work of learners being discounted as unfit for assessment. Such matters will be decided by academic panel along with EduQual.

1 Note that centres must provide their learners with access to Turnitin software or else submit learners’ work for analysis via Turnitin upon receiving learner assignment scripts. In either case, the Turnitin report must be included with the submission of any learner work for assessment.

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Combined Assignment 4: Marketing Communications, Marketing Planning and Consumer Behaviour The four tasks shown below constitute 90% of the overall mark allocated and as shown at Mark

Scheme. 10% of the overall marks for the assignment must be given to ‘Structure and Format’.

Assume that you are the Marketing Manager of an organisation. Your organisation is going to launch

a new product or service to an international market and needs to plan for campaign effectiveness.

You have been asked to prepare a report for the release of this new product or service.

Task 1  Using relevant sources of information, describe the background to consumer behaviour for your

organisation’s market and explain how psychological and environmental variables can influence customers.

 Analyse the role of advertising and promotion in marketing with consideration of:

o Communication processes and regulation

o The role of advertising and branding in promotional strategies

o Current trends in advertising and promotion, including the impact of ICT and the internet.

o The benefits of relationship marketing to organisations.

Marketing Communications: LO 1; Consumer Behaviour: LO 1

Task 2 Develop a marketing and integrated promotional plan for a product or service which clearly shows:

 Measurable goals and strategies for an identified main target group with an evaluation of their decision making processes.

 Evaluation of barriers, constraints that might affect plan implementation and how they might be overcome. Your response should include consideration of ethical and legal issues in marketing.

 Justify recommendations for pricing, distribution and communication policies.

 The relative importance of brand loyalty, corporate image and repeat purchasing for this group

 How you would measure campaign effectiveness and identify the key requirements of such a plan.

Marketing Communications: LO 3; Consumer Behaviour: LO 2, LO 3, Marketing Planning: LO2, LO 3 Marketing Planning: LO 1

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Task 3 Compare the role of below the line (BTL) and above the line (ATL) techniques in the marketing and communications plan, and evaluate the use of below the line techniques for selected products and/or services.

Marketing Communications: LO 2

Marketing Planning: LO 1

Assignment Word Count Task 1 1200 words

Task 2 1300 words

Task 3 500 words

3000 maximum across all tasks.

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Combined Assignment 4: Criteria and Mark Scheme Assessment Criteria Marks

allocated Typical Content Mark

Given Task 1:

 Using relevant sources of information, describe the background to consumer behaviour for your organisation’s market and explain how psychological and environmental variables can influence customers.

 Analyse the role of advertising and promotion in marketing with consideration of:

o Communication processes and regulation

o The role of advertising and branding in promotional strategies

o Current trends in advertising and promotion, including the impact of ICT and the internet.

o The benefits of relationship marketing to organisations.

Marketing Communications: LO 1; Consumer Behaviour: LO 1

50 Communication process: Nature and components of marketing communications; models of communication; selection and implementation process; consumer buying decision-making process; influences on consumer behaviour; integration of marketing communications. Role of advertising and branding in the promotional mix: With sales promotion, PR, personal and direct selling; objectives of advertising and branding (i.e. what message they wish to communicate); promotion mix strategies. Regulation of promotion: Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations; Sale of Goods Act; Supply of Goods and Services Act; Data Protection Act, etc. Current trends: Media fragmentation and the decline in power of traditional media (e.g. radio, television, newspaper). Understand buyer behaviour: Consumer and organisational purchase decision-making processes; influences on consumer purchase behaviour (personal, psychological, social); influences on organisational buyer behaviour (environmental, organisational, interpersonal, individual); purchase occasion; buying interests and motives; buyer moods; level of involvement; finding the decision-taker distinction between customers and users. Relationship marketing: Benefits of relationship marketing (e.g. loyalty, lower costs, easier targeting); electronic customer relationship marketing (eCRM); operational CRM; analytical CRM and data mining (e.g. past purchase suggestions on Amazon or eBay).

Task 2: Develop a marketing and integrated promotional plan for a product or service which clearly shows:

 Measurable goals and strategies for an identified main target group with an evaluation of their decision making processes.

 Evaluation of barriers, constraints that might affect plan implementation and how they might be overcome. Your response should include consideration of ethical and legal issues in marketing.

 Justify recommendations for pricing, distribution and communication

60 Developing a promotional plan: Situation analysis; objectives; communication goals, target audiences; creative strategy; promotional strategy and tactics; media selection; inter- and intra-media decisions; scheduling; burst versus drip; budget allocation; evaluation measures; planning tools (e.g. AIDA, DAGMAR, SOSTT + 4Ms, SOSTAC, planning software). Pricing policy: Price taking versus price making; distribution methods; transport methods; hub locations.

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policies.  The relative importance of brand

loyalty, corporate image and repeat purchasing for this group

 How you would measure campaign effectiveness and identify the key requirements of such a plan.

Marketing Communications: LO 3; Consumer Behaviour: LO 2, LO 3, Marketing Planning: LO2, LO 3 Marketing Planning: LO 1

Communication mix: Evaluation of promotional mix, for the selected product/service; identify issues and how they may be overcome. Integration of promotional techniques: Benefits; methods; role of positioning; positioning strategies; push and pull strategies; importance of PR; corporate identity and packaging in aiding integration; barriers to integration (company and agency organisational structures; cost); methods of overcoming these barriers; levels of integration; award-winning campaigns. Measuring campaign effectiveness: Comparison with objectives; customer response; recall; attitude surveys; quantitative and qualitative measures. Customers and markets: Purchase decision- making process; buying situations and types of buying decision; dimensions of buyer behavior. Buyer behaviour: Influences on buyer behaviour; stimulus response model; models of purchase behaviour; diffusion, innovation; model unitary and decision-making units. Buying motives: Psychological factors; socio- psychological factors; economic factors and cultural factors influencing customer behaviour; lifestyle and life-cycle factors; customer and prospect profiling. Branding: Relationship between brand loyalty, company image and repeat purchase. Buyer behaviour models and theories: What, where, when, why, how, who?; stimulus response; buyer characteristics; buying roles; buying situations; group and social factors. Marketing mix and buyer behaviour: Product, price, place promotion, and their relationship to buying behaviours. Ethical issues in marketing: Ethics and the development of the competitive stance; different perspectives on ethics in the global marketplace; ethical trade-offs; ethics and managerial cultures. Consumer ethics: False insurance claims; warranty deception; fraudulent redemption of vouchers; returns of merchandise; illegal downloads; illegal copying and/or distribution. Organisational auditing: Evaluating organisational capability; balancing strategic intent and strategic reality; the determinants of capability: e.g. managerial, financial, operational, human resource, and intangible (brand) capability; approaches to leveraging capability; aspects of competitive advantage.External factors: Approaches to analysing external factors that influence marketing planning; the identification and evaluation of key external forces using analytical tools (e.g. PESTLE etc.).Ethical issues and marketing: Price fixing; predatory pricing; price discrimination; restriction of supply; unreasonable conditions set by distributors; fakes; identification of product problems; corporate sponsorship.

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Task 3: Compare the role of below the line (BTL) and above the line (ATL) techniques in the marketing and communications plan, and evaluate the use of below the line techniques for selected products and/or services.

Marketing Communications: LO 2

Marketing Planning: LO 1

25 Comparison of below the line (BTL) and above the line techniques: Mass versus direct, personal approached; sales promotion; public relations; loyalty schemes; sponsorship; product placement; direct marketing; exhibitions; word- of-mouth; personal selling; use of new media. Evaluation of use of BTL techniques: For selected products/services.

Structure and Format  Relevance to the tasks,

professional tone and format of response (2 marks).

Harvard Referencing (8 marks)

 In-text citation

 Bibliography, listed correctly and correlates to references made

 Accurate, correctly-formatted footnotes

 Integration of: supporting concepts, frameworks, critical thinking.

Total Mark 150

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Assessment Criteria for all Assessments

Marks Criteria 70-100  The answer submitted has an outstanding result with negligible amount of mistakes.

 The answer shows an appreciative level of knowledge and clear understanding of related models, theories and frameworks. Analytical techniques used show the wide area of knowledge the learner has.

 The ability to apply and contextualise the models, theories and frameworks is clearly recognisable.

 The analysis and the use of research data, as well as the ability to use the data to reach acceptable and accurate conclusions, is exceptional.

 Answers show independent thought and clarity of the learner has led to an overall focused and evaluative answer.

 The answer has followed proper Harvard referencing.

60-69  The answer shows an above average standard with few errors.  The answer shows a decent level of knowledge and fairly clear understanding of related models,

theories and frameworks. There is a very good level, and use of, analytical techniques that is obvious throughout the answer.

 The ability to apply and contextualise the models, theories and frameworks is of a good standard.

 The analysis and the use of research data, as well as the ability to use the data to reach acceptable and accurate conclusions, is above average level.

 Answers show independent thought and clarity of the learner answer has led to an overall focused and evaluative answer with little inconsistency.

 The answer has followed proper Harvard referencing.

50-59  The answer shows an above average standard with errors.  The answer shows a general level of knowledge and a fairly clear understanding of related models,

theories and frameworks. There is a good level, and use of, analytical techniques that is obvious throughout the answer.

 The ability to apply and contextualise the models, theories and frameworks is of a reasonable standard. However, the link between theory and practical knowledge appears to be restricted/limited.

 The answer shows more assumptions than conclusive deductions/evidences and valid arguments. However, the ability to interpret and evaluate is evident.

 Answers show independent thought and clarity of the learner answer has led to an overall focused and evaluative answer with some inconsistencies.

 The answer has followed Harvard referencing at an acceptable level.

40-49  There are several shortcomings throughout the answer.  The knowledge level reflected in the answer is limited, especially in understanding of related models,

theories and frameworks.

 The case material has been repeated instead of evidencing knowledge.

 The use of analytical techniques is inadequate.

 A certain level of relevance is evidence in Harvard referencing.

30-39  Answer submitted is quite weak and lacks proper focus.  The answer shows a number of spelling errors and/or poor grammar/syntax.

 The lack of understanding in subject knowledge, related models, theories and frameworks is evident.

 Contextualisation, interpretation, and evaluation are of a poor standard.

 Reflects only basic levels of Harvard referencing.

0-29  Requires more work on answering skills; overall output is well below the required standard. Answer has little relevance to the assignment briefs. Spelling/syntax poor.

 Little or no evidence of appropriate subject knowledge.

 Use of models, theories and frameworks is quite poor.

 Little to no evidence of, and/or unacceptable mistakes in, Harvard referencing.

A mark of 40% or greater can only be given where all assignment learning outcomes for all

tasks have been met.