Social Marketing Digitalization

Question: Discuss about theSocial Marketingfor Digitalization. Answer: Introduction Marketing has gained a lot of importance in contemporary times. While earlier some firms see marketing as overheads but currently all the organizations are focusing their efforts in implementing full fledge marketing strategy. This is the age of Disruptiveness and Digitalization. Technology is changing at a rapid rate. Things, which are new, become obsolete in just no time. Also, almost everyone is coming online many times a day and checking out the web. At such junctures, it becomes important for the marketing team to capture the footprints of people over the web, their preferences so as to target a right set of people and reach their customer base. Digitalization offers tremendous potentials with no borders. Marketing team also has to stay closer to customers so as to identify and understand their requirements. All these marketing strategy work on the concept of marketing mix which is a combination of 4 Ps namely Place, Price, Promotion and product. Different organizations uses dif ferent mix of these 4 Ps to separate their offering from competitors and provide more value. In this paper, cause related marketing will be analyzed and elucidate for the 2 NGOs namely RSPCA and WWF. Both are involved for helping people who want to adopt animals or sponsor them or associate themselves in the prevention of nature and endangered species. They both have started the campaigns and the details are available over the web on their sites. These will be studied and analyzed in due course of the assignment. Campaign 1: RSPCAs campaign at https://www.rspca.org.au/adopt-pet Campaign 2: WWFs campaign at https://donate.wwf.org.au/campaigns/donate/ The first impression of the campaigns of both the organizations is quite different from each other. For instance, WWF deals majorly with the adoption of wild animals like snow leopard, Tiger, polar bear, panda, penguin and whale that cannot be kept as pet in normal home conditions while RSPCA caters more to the needs of the people who want to keep dogs, cats and other pets at their homes. RSPCA does not provide adoption of wild animals. Let us see exactly how both the campaigns are different or similar to each other in terms of their marketing mix. Analysis of Product Marketing Mix Product refers directly to what the organization is offering to their customers. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is a leading organization involved in the conservation of endangered species and wildlife. It also aims at making earth a better place to live for all beings especially animals by providing them their fair share of earths natural resources. It has more than 5 million supporters and works in more than 100 countries. It receives its funding majorly from the individuals followed by the government sources and corporate (Polonsky, Macdonald, 2000). Below are the different types of benefits of the product of their campaigns: Core benefit Actual benefit Augmented benefit Feeling of satisfaction by helping protecting endangered species and doing something for a planet Actual benefits includes living planet magazine, fact book of animals, bags, adoption certificate, stickers and other goodies It includes the after sales service which can be keeping you update about the latest trends in environment by sending regular updated in form of books, magazines. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity started in England but now present worldwide. It works mainly to protect animals from cruelty and helps them to find their suitable home in forms of owners who want to own the animals as pets. Not only this, it has numerous animal hospitals and clinics where animals are treated for any injury or medical sickness. The primary form of funding is individual donation for RSPCA. Core benefit Actual benefit Augmented benefit Feeling of satisfaction and companionship by keeping animals as pets Actual benefits include animals, breed, and security if dog is adopted and like that. It includes the after sales service like if animal is having any sickness problem as well as insurance of the animal. Analysis of Price Marketing Mix Both the organizations are nonprofit organizations that work for the welfare of the people. While the major source of funding for both the organizations are Voluntary donation, WWF also receives funds from government and corporations. Both the campaigns have the various options to donate online. They have the option to donate on a recurring basis like monthly, bi-annually, annually and also as 1 time donation. People are free to donate any amount they like and are comfortable with. People will be given details about how they are money is being spent for the welfare of the animals. At RSPCA, people can adopt the animal of his choice depending upon the availability and pay the price based on the breed, color and popularity. Thus, RSPCA accepts donations and also help the people to adopt them as pets if they are willing. At WWF, it sells the lot of goodies like tiger toys, fact books, magazines as a part of its marketing campaign and to increase the awareness among the people. It also a ccepts donation even if people are not willing to buy anything. It also has tie up with big corporate like Starbucks, Coco- cola, GAP, AVON, Bank of America, CVS pharmacy and also offers the people to contribute directly from their salary. Not only this, as it receives major funding in form of bequest, it also has the option of pay by will and bequest on its website (Weinstein, Rogerson, Moreton, Balmford, Bradbury, 2015). It also has started unique campaign of spreading happiness during Christmas times by adopting animals and also has numerous gifting options during the festive times for the people. Its strong marketing strategy has made it a big brand and helps to further increase awareness. Analysis of Place Marketing Mix Place refers to how the product is distributed among the consumers. RSPCA has dedicated centers where people can come and pick the animals after uploading their application on the internet and also providing photos of the place where they are planning to keep the pet provided their application is approved. If people are not adopting but only donating money, they are free to visit any medical clinic or animal hospital to see the treatment of animals and can get the satisfaction how their money is being utilized at RSPCA. At WWF also, People can opt to adopt animal online but since their model is but different and they deal more with the protection of wildlife species whose numbers are on decline, there is nothing like animal pickup. People will receive various goodies like fact books, toy of the animal they adopt and regular updates (Melanthiou, 2016). If they are interested, they can visit any of the site of the WWF to see how their money is being used for the welfare of the people. Analysis of Promotion Marketing Mix Both the institutions are promoting their products and trying to establish themselves as a brand. Both have the dedicated marketing strategy in place. Both are using the online and offline modes for promotions. Both have presence over the internet and social medial platforms like twitter, facebook and are very active.WWF has a 10 year marketing strategy plan till 2024 and taking lot of initiative under it. They have various modes of marketing partnerships for the tie up with corporate in form of licensing, sponsorship, workplace giving and cause related marketing promotion (Wapner, 2012). WWFs million dollar pandas have donated more than 1 million through collaborations. Big names like AVON, HP, Subway, starbucks, Disney have donated to WWF. In this parameter of establishing relationship with corporate, RSPCA looks very conservative and needs to professionalize its approach by asking more and more corporate to sponsor its event and donate for the welfare of the animals. Various celeb rities also involved for promoting the WWF events and visions but there is not much seen for RSPCA (Nurse, 2013). WWF and RSPCA are active at twitters but the statistics are very different for both the organizations. Twitter Data as of 15-Dec-2016 Tweets Followers RSPCA 71.9 K 232K WWF 551K 2.85 million (Source: https://twitter.com/RSPCA_official and https://twitter.com/RSPCA_official) The above statistics clearly shows the aggressiveness and effectiveness of marketing strategy of WWF and also lot of scope of improvement for RSPCA. Target Market Description The target markets if viewed at very high level for both the organization is consists of people who love animals, nature and want to do something to protect out plant and mother earth. On further differentiation, RSPCA target customers involves lot of youth people and children who love to play with pets, older people who love to keep animals at home as security and also for their walks and fitness purposes and the WWF target customers involves upper class and upper middle class people who are well educated (Omura, 2014) and aware about the issue of endangered species and would like to do something for them. Conclusion This paper has critically analyzed the campaigns of both the nonprofit institution i.e. WWF and RSPCA that works for the welfare of the animals in their own ways. While at high level both the campaigns looks the same, there is huge difference between them in terms of various elements of marketing mix. They are different in terms of their products offering, promotion strategy, pricing as well as target customers. Both are using the online and offline modes to reach the greater mass of the people so as to increase their funding so as to increase their effort in the direction of our planet. References Melanthiou, Y. (2016). Messages Not Getting Through: Societal Marketing to the Rescue. Journal of Promotion Management, 22(2), 195-196. Nurse, A. (2013). Privatising the green police: the role of NGOs in wildlife law enforcement.Crime, law and social change,59(3), 305-318. Omura, T., Forster, J. (2014). Competition for donations and the sustainability of not-for-profit organisations.Humanomics,30(3), 255-274. Polonsky, M. J., Macdonald, E. K. (2000). Exploring the link between cause?related marketing and brand building.International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing,5(1), 46-57. Wapner, P. (2012). World Wildlife Fund.The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization. Weinstein, N., Rogerson, M., Moreton, J., Balmford, A., Bradbury, R. B. (2015). 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