Global Marketing and Advertising Cultural

Question: Discuss about the Global Marketing and Advertising Cultural. Answer: Introduction In the present environment, every educational institute has a need of a good marketing plan to develop its brand in the international market. In this concern, to make understanding about the marketing strategy for an international institute Australian Catholic University (ACU) is considered with a detailed plan. A detailed marketing plan prepares to the university to launch new products and services among their targeted audience. This university focuses on online teaching and learning (OTL) programs for global students. Moreover, the report analyzes demographic environment for the university and critically analyzes SWOT of ACU with comparing its competitive brands. A marketing plan presents an extensive overview of the whole organizations objectives, mission, resource allocation and strategy in the competitive market. It provides document how the strategic objectives of an organization will be accomplished through particular marketing strategies and policies with the customers as the starting point (Hollensen, 2015). Marketing plan is also associated to the plans of other departments of the organization. Marketing plan is a primary action for Australian Catholic University. Marketing plan protects and increases ACUs institutional reputation and strengthens to universitys brand. It is an essential process for the university to encourage community engagement and strengthen the universitys significance in career of target audience with including present and prospective students, donors, alumni, friends, staff and faculty. Although the literal length and arrangement of educational services may be vary from university to university but a marketing plan generally includes the fundamentals of the marketing strategies. The university may create shorter or less formal marketing plans, but the university frequently requires highly structured marketing plans to compete in the international market (ACU, 2016). In this way, every part of the marketing plan must be expressed in detail to guide implementation effectively. Occasionally, an organization may post its marketing plan on its website, whi ch allows the students in different locations to consult specific educational programs and collaborate in development of educational programs. Current market plan: Australian Catholic University strives for contributing in the development of local, national, and international communities by nurturing the interest of people in education, health, science and technology, creative arts and innovation, and commerce (ACU, 2017). Furthermore, ACU strives to nurture spiritual and intellectual life among students and staffs. As a Catholic University, it aims to care for all the persons physically and spiritually. Along with this, there are some targets that the University wants to achieve before 2020. These objectives are: To be one of the most leading catholic universities across the world To be leading university in research specialization across the world To foster the culture of excellence research in its vision and mission To be an University enrolling over 30000 Students from across the word To deliver quality education with innovative and creative education programs and using advanced education technology To ensure the student gratification with coursework and education quality To improve the performance and service quality To provide Online Teaching and Learning facility (ACU, 2017) The mission of ACU is to provide excellent higher education for its entire diversified and dispersed student body, a body that is increasingly connected to ACU National via the Internet (ACU, 2017). Segmentation is the process of fragmenting the whole market into segments, where from an organization can select best one market that meets the requirement and objectives of organization. Segmentation helps ACU in ensuring the quality of product and service and student satisfaction. Segmentation can be based on geographical factors, demographical factors, psychological factors, and behavioral factors (Armstrong et al, 2014). Australian Catholic University uses geographic and demographic factors mostly to segment the market. ACU segments the market based on the geographic regions across the world and domestic country as well. At the same time, it also fragments the market based on the demographic factors (ACU, 2017). Demographic factors may be age, income, education, occupation, family size, gender, religion, race and others. ACU fragments the market based on gender, religion, race, income, and education mostly. As it is catholic university that is why it allows enrollment of the stud ents belongs to catholic group. It is also nonprofit organization and that is why it uses income as a base for fragmenting the market. It strives to enroll both male and female students (ACU, 2017). Targeting is the process of evaluating the segmented market and then selecting the best one market meets organizational objectives and goals, and that is compatible to the resources of company (Smith, 2014). ACU targets both male and female students across the world. The female enrolment finds more than the male enrollment in ACU. Around 72.7 percent female students are student in under graduation courses and 70.6 percent female students are in post graduation courses (AEN, 2017). Along with this, it targets the students belong to lower and middle class or income family. It also targets international students therefore it has enrolled 2,920 students from oversea market. Positioning is a marketing strategy, which is used to develop a distinct position of the brand in mind of the target customer. The positioning strategy helps ACU in differentiating from others or its competitors in target market. There are different positioning strategies such as positioning by the quality, positioning by price, positioning by endorsement, positioning by feature and benefits, and positioning by products and services (Armstrong et al, 2014). ACU focuses on quality and price as well to positional itself. It shows that it makes able the student to develop critical, ethical, and rational thinking process and to promote and develop their communities by executing changes (ACU, 2017). At the same time, it uses price positioning strategy as well because it targets the students from lower to middle class families. Marketing mix of Australian Catholic University: Australian Catholic University provides under graduation and post graduation course in streams of arts, business and commerce, science and technology, health, law, nursing and midwifery, paramedicine, philosophy, social work and others. It also offers research courses such as doctors of education, doctors of philosophy, and doctors of philosophy in social and political thought, masters of education, and masters of technology (ACU, 2017). Along with this, it offers training courses, language courses, and vocational education training. It is also offering Online Teaching and Learning as well. Pricing is an important factor to be used in every organization to get the return on the offer to be made to customers. Pricing helps in determining the monetary value of products and services. Price may be determined using cost pricing method, competitive pricing method, and others pricing methods (Smith, 2014). ACU is a nonprofit public university that determines the prices of offers that is affordable to the students. It provides scholarship based enrollment to the oversee students. It offers services on affordable price as it knows that it targets students from lower to middle class families (ACU, 2017). The price list of ACU for different courses is given below for example: Distribution means that how an organization distributes its products, and renders its services to customers. ACU uses both online and off line distribution channels of services. It uses also distance learning system as well for distribution. It focusing on online teaching and learning system currently (ACU, 2017). It provides online education to students that makes easy for university to promote distance learning and attracting large number of students from abroad. The promotion is the communication of products and services to customers. ACU uses advertisement, sales promotion, and public relation tools mostly for promotion (ACU, 2017). It gets its products and services endorsed by Academic Board and published. Along with this, it provides scholarship based admission to attract the students. Current and potential Demand of Australian Catholic University: The Australian Catholic University is deemed one of the most leading universities across the Australia. ACU enjoys good market share and demand. It has around 32000 students from across the world. The demands of bachelor courses are higher than post graduate or master degree courses. There are around 20000 undergrad students while 7500 post grad students. The undergrad students constitute about 76.3% of the total students of Australian Catholic University (AEN, 2017). At the same time, post grade students are only 21.1% of the total students. At the same time, 2,920 students are from the abroad has enrolled in university for undergrad and post grade courses. Australian Catholic University has 7 campuses throughout the Australia. Theses campuses are Adalalde, Ballarat, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, North Sydney, and Strathifiled. Ballart campus has around 1000 students while students more than 5200 including oversee students around 400, are enrolled in Brisbane campus. At the same time, about 2000 students including both domestic and international students are enrolled in Canberra campus. Furthermore, there are 8900 students including 7900 domestic students and about 1000 oversee students (ACU, 2017). At the same time, North Sydney and Strathifield campuses have around 10000 students across the world. Most of students are satisfied with ACU and it is using Online Teaching and Learning programs and distance learning system as well. Therefore, it can be said that the demand of ACU will increase defiantly up to a good level. The distance learning and OTL will possibly increase the demand of ACU in international market mostly. Demographic environment of Australian Catholic University: Demographic environment is the set of demographic characteristics of people concerned to the organization directly and indirectly. The demographic environment consists of the factors, which describe the characteristics of the people in the market (De Mooij, 2013). The market targeted by ACU is very oriented to education and intellectual and spiritual tradition. ACU has around 72.3 female students from the world (ACU, 2017). Most of the students are satisfied with service of ACU. About 90% business students, 88% health students, 82% arts students, and 2% science students are satisfied with the service of ACU. Australian Catholic University enrolls the students of all the nationalities, beliefs, and culture. At the same time, it also has staffs belong to different culture, nationality and beliefs (KOM, 2017). Students at ACU campus are very friendly and enjoy the access to student support service and qualified lecture services. Furthermore, ACU employs both full time staff and fractional full time staff. Australian Catholic University has staffs of 2346 people. Australian Catholic University has all the full time staff. Australian Catholic University employs the people based on tenurial basis and limited terms basis. ACU has both male and female staff as well (UA, 2013). It has 404 male and 889 female staff for a fixed tenure. At the same time, it has 192 male and 366 female staff for a limited term. ACU has around 290 people for teaching only, 88 people for research only and 300 people for teaching and research. Remaining staffs are employed for other activities. Apart from this, it has 96 above senior lecture, 51 lecture level C, 116 lecture level B, 11below lecture level A, of male staffs. At the same time, it has 97 above senior lecture, 111 lecture level C, 242 lecture level B, 14 below lecture level A, of female staffs (UA, 2013). Most of the students enrolled in ACU are from the lower and middle clas s families. At the same time, it targets students for undergrad and post grade courses. It provides services to people of all the age groups. Key findings with its competitor brand Australian Catholic University is a public university, which is funded by Australian government. This university has seven locations in different states of Australia, which makes it more competitive among the higher educational institutes. ACU provides different range of courses such as health sciences, law and business, philosophy and theology. These features make it more competitive among its competitors. In the findings, it is analyzed that total number of students is lower in comparison of Monash University and Melbourne University, which are its big competitors in Australia. But, this university has good rank in providing distance and online education globally. Furthermore, the number of overseas students in ACU is 2920, which is much low in compare to its competitors (Australian Education Network, 2017). The main reason of this situation is that the university has seasonal staff for teaching, which discourages the students to take admission in this university. On the other hand, fees of ACU are lesser in compare to other universities, which is a competitive advantage for it among its competitors. In other words, this university provides world class education at lower cost for the international students. In addition, it is also analyzed that QS ranking of ACU is 701, but its competitors QS ranking is under 100 (Australian Education Network, 2017). Therefore, it can be analyzed that the world ranking position of ACU is not good in comparison to its competitor brands. As well as the findings determines that research excellence position is also not good in comparison the competitive universities. Hence, it can be said that the Australian Catholic University needs to improve its human resources as well as marketing plan to make a good position in higher education sector. SWOT analysis SWOT analysis tends to an organizations strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the market. It is conducted to an organizations strategy of introducing a new product in the market. The SWOT analysis covers only that factors that may influence the ability of the organization therefore it not covers the entire activities of the organization (Dunn et al., 2012). On the basis of above key findings the SWOT analysis of Australian Catholic University is as below: Internal Environment Strength The existing policy frame and established roles towards the university goals and objectives improving the quality of universitys teaching and learning Current awareness on policies, procedures, responsibilities and roles supported the educational services Excellent staff with strong knowledge of their subject Successful marketing strategies and reputation for innovation in education Weaknesses Lack of sufficient recognition in interim policy Higher workload for the academic staff Absence of appreciation in policy which is impacted by flexible nature of online teaching mode on academic work (Freeman et al., 2014) Lack of coordination between authority and academic staff Dependency on sectional staff for development Lack of data on through which the staff have tolerable access to proper computer facilities for teaching and unit expansion External Environment Opportunities Opportunity of developing and implementing a sustainable and flexible learning initiatives by examining experience of other successful institutes An opportunity to expand online teaching and learning in the emerging trends To become a leader in online and interdisciplinary learning Increasing demand of online education Threats Failure in addressing gap between universitys current practices and external expectations of the target audience Threat of losing experienced teaching staff due to better opportunities by other universities Increasing competition Conclusion: From the above report, it can be said that the report has successfully analyzed the demographic environment, market demand, and current marketing plan of Australian Catholic University. Apart from this, it identified the strength and weakness of the ACU that ACU has experience and highly qualified staffs and strong brand awareness. At the same time, there is higher dependency rate and lack of coordination among staffs. Apart from this, it is found that students and staffs of all the beliefs and culture are there in ACU. References: ACU (2016). Study at ACU. Retrieved from: https://www.acu.edu.au/study_at_acu ACU, (2017). About ACU. Retrieved from. https://www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/campuses/north_sydney ACU, (2017). About ACU. Retrieved from. https://www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/our_university/strategic_plan_2015-2020 ACU, (2017). About ACU. Retrieved from. https://www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/our_university/why_choose_acu ACU, (2017). About ACU. Retrieved from. https://www.acu.edu.au/courses/courses ACU, (2017). Cost and Scholarship. Retrieved from https://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1096609/Course_Fees_2017_aw_LR.pdf AEN, (2017). 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