Place Analysis

Submit a detailed analysis of the place strategy for a new line of products.

Introduction

As we learned in Assessment 1, Red Bull must find a way to maintain its leadership in the energy drink category. Looking for ways to grow sales, Red Bull’s marketing manager has tasked you with preparing a plan for introducing a new product line of energy drinks with a coffee flavor.

Your marketing manager was impressed with your product analysis. Now Red Bull needs your help deciding how they will distribute these new coffee-flavored products, which distribution channels they will use, and which approaches and strategies they will apply in order to both reach their customers at the places where they purchase energy drinks and make a profit.

Overview

Develop the second part of your marketing analysis and focus on the next of the 4 Ps—the place actions of Red Bull.

The place strategy of the marketing mix is all about finding the best way to distribute and retail products and services. Not only does place strategy focus on retail locations, but place strategy also focuses on the journey of a product from manufacturer to consumer, which includes transportation, storage, and shipping. Place strategy must also integrate with other Ps of the marketing like product, price, and promotion.

Preparation

Continue to familiarize yourself with Red Bull and its current marketing strategy. With the perspective of place strategy in mind, you can go back to its website, below. You will use this same company for all assessments in this course. In addition, look again at the two other websites that provide background on Red Bull’s current marketing strategy:

• Discover the World of Red Bull.
• Red Bull Marketing Strategy: Sampling and Extreme Sports.
• Red Bull’s Marketing Strategy: What Your Company Can Learn.

If you need guidance in locating additional information about Red Bull, please ask your faculty member.

Instructions

Create a place analysis in which you do the following:

• Accurately identify all areas where Red Bull Energy drinks are currently sold and any new area where the new coffee-flavored energy drinks could be sold.
• Accurately analyze Red Bull’s current distribution channels.
  • How are they getting their product to market?
  • Which distribution strategies are being used to effectively create a competitive advantage?
• Provide an analysis of the place strategy and its effect on business success.
  • Describe how the distribution decisions affect the other Ps in the marketing mix in regard to their new coffee-flavored energy drinks.
  • What recommendations can you make to Red Bull in terms of distribution decisions that may improve business success?
• Analyze the Red Bull place strategy’s impact on the profitability of the company.
  • Describe the effect of the place strategy on the overall success of the company.

In the analysis:

• Incorporate information from three other sources related to the content of the assessment. Cite any resources you use.
• Be sure your analysis presents a focused purpose through strong organizational skills. Also, be sure it presents evidence through strong paraphrasing/summarizing, appropriate tone, and sentence structure.

Planning

The time it takes to complete an assessment can vary greatly. But it often takes longer than we think to explore the scope of a task, research it, write a draft, and then come back and revise it. Consider the following as rough guideposts for setting aside the time you need to do your work. You’ll want to adjust these as you learn more about your own pace and working style.

• Research and reading: 4 hours.
• Interactive activities: 30 minutes.
• Writing: 6 hours.
• Revising: 2 hours.

Additional Requirements

• Written communication: Communication should be clear and well organized, and support a central idea, with no technical writing errors, as expected of a business professional.
• References: References and citations are formatted in a consistent style, using APA. See the Campus page Evidence and APA. Also refer to the Business Academic Professional Document Guidelines [PDF], which provide basic formatting and APA guidelines you should follow to create attractive and usable documents not just within your business program but in the workplace as well.
• Resources: Incorporate information from three other sources related to the content of the assessment.
• Length of paper: Approximately 3–4 typed, double-spaced pages, in addition to the title and references pages.
• Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Examine the basic marketing models for a business or organization.
  • Analyze a product’s distribution channels.
• Competency 3: Examine the relationship of basic marketing strategies to business success.
  • Analyze place strategy and the associated impact on economic success.
• Competency 4: Apply effective marketing planning and implementation.
  • Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.
• Competency 5: Develop a sales plan.
  • Identify where a product is sold.