BA 311 Marketing Management: Pricing, Channel, Promotion
Pricing Strategy
Unless someone wrote an article on "pricing strategy of Product X", most likely you will have to synthesize information from multiple sources and come up with your own conclusion. Check your textbook for information on the major pricing models and see which model your company is using. Try the following:
- Company website (including competitors')
- Company annual report
- Check out Product X's price (online or in the store), compare that with prices of its competitors.
- Google for possible analysis in blogs or other sites
- Resources listed below:
- Value Pricing (by OTBC)One approach to explore what will customers pay.
- Statista
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Provides statistics from over 18,000 free and proprietary sources on a wide range of topics such as business, media, and demographics.
Social Media
- Conducting a Social Media AuditTips from the Harvard Business Review website.
AdAge & AdWeek
Essential publications on the ad industry.
Channel Strategy
Companies are not required to disclose their supply chain information, although some choose to do so. You will have to synthesize information from multiple sources and draw your own conclusion. Possible sources include:
- Company website: annual report or 10-K (do a keyword search with "supply chain", "supplier", "sourcing", "logistics", "channel", or "distribut"; sustainability (corporate responsibility) report; press releases.
- Google for possible articles.
- Databases listed below:
- IBISWorld
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There is "supply chain" information on the industry (not company) level. - Mintel
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Retail channel information is available under Market -> Market Breakdown and/or Appendix - Market. - Passport (by Euromonitor)
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Some industry reports have a section on distribution such as typical purchase outlets (e.g., specialty store vs. supermarket). - SMA: Sports Market Analytics (formerly SBRNet: Sport Business Research Network)
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Select sport, find the product (if available) under Consumer Expenditures, then click on the link Purchases by Outlet Type. - Statista
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Provides statistics from over 18,000 free and proprietary sources on a wide range of topics such as business, media, and demographics.
Promotional/Branding Strategy
Promotional/branding Strategy can be found on the company website and in company annual reports (or 10-Ks), articles, and market research reports. Use keywords like promotion, promotional, advertising, branding, or even marketing strategy.
Visit the company's social media channels (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and analyze the content. Search for articles on ad compaigns and promotions.
- Business Source Premier
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Provides full text and citations to articles in various business publications; also includes company profiles, industry profiles, and country information. - Mintel
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Maintains market research reports and consumer demographic/lifestyle profiles covering U.S. and international marketplaces. - Passport (by Euromonitor)
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Company profiles may cover brand strategy. Articles and industry reports might be informative too. - Nexis Uni
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Includes full text sources for regional, national, and international newspapers as well as business, legal, and medical publications, and also, government documents.
Ad Expenditures
It's difficult to find free information on ad spending of a company, esp. by brand and medium (e.g., TV vs. Internet). The PSU Library cannot afford the comprehensive database that provides those detailed data; however, we did purchase the 2015 dataset (the AD$ Summary file listed below) for your reference.
A public company's 10-K report may mention expenditures on advertising. Figures are annual and cover the entire company, not particular brands.
- AD$ Summary (2015)Advertising expenditures by (top) company, industry, brand, and media.
- Business Expenses Survey (Economic Census)Includes advertising expenditures for different industries.
Anecdotal information might have been mentioned in news articles (Google or use library article databases). Search strategy:
- company name AND (adspend OR "advertising spend" OR "advertising expenditure" OR "advertising budget")
- Go to AdvertisingAge or ADWEEK's websites and do a site search for possible articles.