CIM Level 6 Diploma in Professional Marketing Mastering Metrics (2201)

Scenario: The impact of the changing lifestyles of end-users on organisational marketing strategy

In your role as a Marketing Manager, you have been asked by the Senior Management Team (SMT), of your own organisation or an organisation of your choice, to produce a report on the impact of the changing lifestyles of end-users on marketing strategy.

Currently, organisations are exploring the potential changes in end-user lifestyles and the impact of these on how their products or services are used. As end-user usage changes, this may affect the demand for a product or service and so the organisation’s marketing strategy will need to change to address these lifestyle changes. Drivers of such changes include climate change, convenience, developments in technology, ethics, and other areas.

The development of this marketing strategy should be supported by a range of metrics to provide relevant and robust data for analysis. The SMT, of your chosen organisation, are interested in what changes will need to be made to current metrics, to enable them to make informed decisions to meet the evolving needs of their end-users in using their products or services.

Guidance notes:

The assignment consists of THREE separate tasks that are linked together to form a set of solutions to enable the organisation to inform its marketing strategy of changes required to meet changes in end-users’ lifestyles.

Note that the term end-user applies to a purchasing customer who is also an end-user, but the term is used to ensure that the assessment can be applied by all sectors and some examples follow. In Business to Business markets this may not be the organisation’s purchasing customer.

In a Business to Consumer (B2C) environment examples could include the production of food using sustainable methods to help protect wildlife, the production of electric cars and their components or beauty products made from vegan ingredients. In a Business to Business (B2B) environment this could include examples such as organisations promoting their ethical supply chains to appeal to an ethics driven customer base, in the public sector an example might be the national health service (NHS) which is spending more on research and drugs for conditions, such as diabetes, which are increasing in the population. Charities are also appealing to the lifestyles of potential volunteers through, for example, the opportunity to walk dogs without the ongoing commitment of full ownership.

FIVE marks will be awarded for an organisation overview in Task 1, which will form part of the report required for the first task, using the guidance given.

It is good practice to acknowledge all sources/methodologies/applications using the Harvard referencing system.

In your role as a Marketing Manager, you have been asked by the SMT of your chosen organisation to produce a report on the role of marketing metrics in assessing changing end-user lifestyles.

Required:

(a) Provide a background to your chosen organisation that gives an overview of the customer base and its current ability to respond to evolving end-user lifestyles.
(5 marks)
(b) Describe what has influenced the choice of the current set of marketing metrics used by your chosen organisation.
(10 marks)
(c) Appraise the current challenges of obtaining purposeful and relevant data on changing end-user lifestyles for your chosen organisation.
(15 marks)
(Total – 30 marks)
(Organisation overview maximum page count – one side of A4 paper) (Tasks 1 (b) to 1 (c) maximum word count – 1,250 words)

TASK 1 – REPORT

Maximum page count:

Task 1 (a) – one side of A4 paper Maximum word count:

Tasks 1 (b) to 1 (c) – 1,250 words

Guidance notes:

ORGANISATION OVERVIEW GUIDELINES

The organisation overview is intended to provide context on the chosen organisation and must not exceed one side of A4 paper.

The following headings should be included:

· Organisation name

· Organisation information – To include type of organisation, size of organisation, range of products and services, customer base and main competitors

· Specific background – Provide a background to the chosen organisation that gives an overview of the customer base, and its ability to take changes in end-user lifestyles into account when formulating marketing strategy

Task 1 (b): Candidates should consider a range of factors that have influenced how the current set of marketing metrics has been chosen. This should include the consideration of various types of marketing metrics, and the need to align these with marketing objectives, strategies and outcomes. Consideration of the current working practices and processes in the chosen organisation may help to identify whether the reporting of metrics is supported, and whether the organisation has the resources to record the required information and data, for example, a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Candidates may also want to consider the impact of stakeholder influence on what metrics are used and how these have been implemented, for example, who the most influential stakeholders are, their role in helping to determine key performance indicators (KPIs) and therefore the metrics required to measure them. Candidates may refer to models such as McKinsey’s 7S Framework, or other relevant stakeholder models.

Task 1 (c): Candidates should appraise the current marketing metrics in terms of their robustness, reliability and validity in relation to changing end- user lifestyles.

Continued

Task 1 continued

Candidates are expected to clearly appraise any identified challenges in using the current set of existing metrics for taking changing end-user lifestyles into account when formulating marketing strategy. It is also expected that candidates will demonstrate knowledge of a range of marketing metrics, together with their strengths and weaknesses, for obtaining data on changing end-user lifestyles. This appraisal may also include the potential problems that the organisation may encounter, such as the dangers of measuring the wrong factors, or the impact that different types of data may have upon each other. Candidates could also consider whether there are any potential gaps between some of the metrics used and their ability to measure the organisation’s marketing outcomes.

You have been asked to prepare a briefing paper for the SMT that considers sources of measurement techniques, and the data these provide for identifying changing end-user lifestyles.

Required:

(a) Assess TWO new measurement techniques that could be used to provide data on changing end-user lifestyles.
(14 marks)
(b) Create a prototype dashboard to illustrate the types of data that could be gathered when using these TWO new measurement techniques.
(12 marks)
(c) Recommend what automated techniques could be used within your prototype dashboard for monitoring and anticipating changes in end- user lifestyles.
(9 marks)
(Total – 35 marks)
(Tasks 2 (a) to 2 (c) maximum word count – 1,750 words)

TASK 2 – BRIEFING PAPER

Maximum word count: 1,750 words

Guidance notes:

Task 2 (a): Candidates should select and assess the TWO measurement techniques that they feel are most relevant to measuring changes in end- user lifestyles. These could, for example, be strategic metrics, operational metrics, or predictive measures such as horizon scanning or scenario planning. The key is that these TWO measurement techniques have not been used previously by the chosen organisation, and both should be able to support gathering information on changing end-user lifestyles.

Task 2 (b): Candidates should present their data in a visual prototype marketing dashboard. These should not be just isolated charts and pictures, but should relate to the TWO new measurement techniques identified in Task 2 (a). Candidates should include a range of ways in which data should be presented through the new measuring techniques that should provide insight into changing end-user lifestyles. They could, for example, include data to illustrate why these changes are occurring, whether they are significant changes that are impacting on the organisation's products or services, whether they are seasonal, what their impact is, etc. This could be illustrated by identifying trends in sales, repeat purchase levels, attitudes to the brand, etc. The prototype dashboard should include, where relevant, examples of both quantitative and qualitative data, but all data examples must be outcomes of the TWO new measurement techniques chosen. The dashboard requires little supporting narrative, but should illustrate the data outcomes visually. However, the intended source of data for each chart or diagram should be stated below each visual, together with a brief rationale for its selection.

Task 2 (c): Candidates should recommend automated techniques that would be appropriate for the metrics in the prototype dashboard. These could include techniques for monitoring changes in end-user lifestyles, forecasting changes, setting levels for trigger points, creating planned reactions to data gathering, and attribution modelling. The prototype dashboard could provide insight into where the events/touchpoints are in the end-user’s journey, and then assign values to each of these. An example of events/touchpoints using healthier lifestyles as an example related to food purchase could be the end- users’ purchasing motives, their ways of shopping, quality versus price, how food is consumed, etc.

You have been asked to prepare a report for the SMT that considers new data sources available to analyse changing end-user lifestyles, and the issues that could occur when managing existing and new data sets.

Required:

(a) Assess the strengths and limitations of the data sources, both online and offline, that could be used to analyse changing end-user lifestyles.
(10 marks)
(b) Describe the potential impact and integration issues of merging new data with existing data.
(10 marks)
(c) Evaluate how insight drawn from metrics on changing end-user lifestyles could be used when formulating marketing strategy.
(15 marks)
(Total – 35 marks)
(Tasks 3 (a) to 3 (c) maximum word count – 1,750 words)

TASK 3 – REPORT

Maximum word count: 1,750 words

Guidance notes:

Task 3 (a): Candidates should demonstrate their knowledge of data sources that are relevant to changes in end-user lifestyles. These should be both online and offline and could be, for example, customer feedback surveys, email and customer contact forms, usability testing, social media, etc.

Examples to consider could also be from tactical activities, such as data on marketing campaigns, dashboard information, primary and secondary research, etc. The strengths and limitations of the chosen data sources on changing end-user lifestyles should be assessed in relation to formulating marketing strategy.

Task 3 (b): Candidates should describe the potential issues of merging new and existing data. These could include issues of merging large and small data sets, the need for a ‘single source of truth’, and whether the data has been collected in the same way so that it can become one single source of data. Other examples could include duplication of data sets, and potential dilution of the reliability and validity of the data. Some relevant older data may get lost in the merging.

Task 3 (c): Candidates should evaluate how metric analysis on changing end- user lifestyles could contribute to marketing strategy. This could include the advantages and disadvantages of real time data, traditional marketing metrics and digital metric integration, reliance on dashboard information, and the use of statistical analysis in strategic decision making.

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