BUILDING BRAND REPUTATION THROUGH MARKETING MIX

A Case Study On Nokia

Table Of Contents

No. Contents Page Number

1 Introduction 1

2 Research Design 1

2.1 Type of Research 1

2.2 Data source 1

2.3 Scaling Techniques 2

2.4 Sampling technique 2

2.5 Fieldwork 2

3 Data analysis 2

3.1 Methodology 2

4 Findings 3-5

5 Limitations 5

6 Theory 5-6

7 Company at a glance 6-9

8 Recommendation 9

9 Conclusion 9

10 Exhibits 9-11

11 Referance 11

Executive summary

The purpose of this report was to examine the impact of marketing mix on brand reputation. Research for this report included a review of current literature on web-based articles and interviews with voluntary respondents. The major findings indicate that while product quality is best then brand can charge high price. They should emphasize in promotional activities and placing. This report recommends that, Nokia should increase the facility of customer center and customer relationship. Pricing could be reduced if possible and product should be available in other areas also.

1 Introduction

Market reputation of a brand doesn’t come easily. Product quality, price of the product, promotional activities and other elements brings the company into the light. To get a great reputation, business needs to go beyond average. Brand should promise great things and deliver. At the most basic level, customer has to be satisfied. Product must be problem-free or service must be completed on time. Company should take customer satisfaction to the next level. Go beyond their expectations and one of the ways of this is marketing mix, though there are other elements. The marketing mix is often referred to as the '4 Ps', i.e. product, price, place and promotion. To meet customers' needs a business must develop products to satisfy them, charge the right price, get the goods to the right place, and it must make the existence of the product known through promotion.

Our objective is to find out:

1. How to build brand reputation through marketing mix?2. What is the effect of marketing mix in Brand reputation?3. What is the opinion of buyers toward the marketing mix and Brand reputation of Nokia?

2 Research Design

2.1 Type

Before conducting research, problem should be defined more specifically and deeply for identify alternative courses of action or develop hypotheses or gain insights for developing approach to the problem. For this we had to cross exploratory research. Which main objective is to look insight of a given problem and making it precise.

Then for best use of this research, we made a step to causal research which is one of the branches of conclusive research. Conclusive research is designed to assist the decision maker e.g. manager to determine, evaluate and select the best approach in a given problem. Causal research is done to see the cause and effect of two or more variables and relationship in a given phenomenon.

2.2 Data Source

Secondary Data: internet data, blogs, writings from executives, researcher, experienced reporter, and industrial heads are known as secondary data source. Nokia website provides useful information about their market and other area.

Primary Data: for this research primary data was taken from voluntary respondents. Survey was the key elements of data collection. Respondent’s response was recoded in form of questionnaire.

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2.3 Scaling techniques

In the questionnaire, scaling was formed in numeric type. Brand reputation and Marketing mix opinion was taken from 1 to 5 scale. Where 1 for highly disagree and 5 for highly agree. Education, Age, Gender and Family income were scaled in terms of number. For example:

1. Male 2. Female

Or

1. Illiterate2. Can read and write3. HSC4. SSC etc.

2.4 Sampling Techniques

5% sample was taken from students, 10% sample was taken from relatives, and 10% from user and other are from business person. Data collection time took 5-8 minutes per respondent. Most of the data taken from convenience places like market area, showrooms, outlets etc.

2.5 Fieldwork

Each member has his own sample. A structured questionnaire was given before doing fieldwork. Members collected most of the data by interviewing the respondents and few of them over mobile phone.

3 Data Analysis

3.1 Methodology

We followed a questionnaire which is completely structured and formed in quantitative method (Showed in exhibits 1). A questionnaire was given to the respondent to fill up the required field. Each member was present there personally and instructed the respondent if they find it difficult to understand. In case of mobile phone interview, respondents were asked to state some opinion and that was converted and filled up by the interviewer.

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4 Findings

Reputation measurement:

After calculating average rating of scale, we got 419 in marketing mix and 423.5 rating in brand reputation. That means, marketing mix increases the brand reputation of Nokia by 4.5 rating which is only 0.95%.

Product Quality Reliability and Consistency

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Product quality, product reliability and product consistency scores 454, 402 and 408 out of 500 respectively. That means, people found their product more consistent than reliable and better quality among same product in the market.

47.06% of total female thinks their product quality is best. Same percentage of female thinks they have best reliability and 41.8% of total thinks it consistency is unquestionable. On the other hand, 23.53% of them think Nokia has average quality of Product when 29.41% thinks it’s good. 5.88% of total female respondents found its reliability is average, 47.06% found it good. 17.65% female thinks its consistency is good but 29.41% of total describes it as average. We haven’t found any dissatisfied respondent.

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Price, Place & Promotion VS Favorability & popularity

Still, most of the user found price of the product of Nokia high. Their products are more convenience and promotion is good. While favorability and popularity shows that the company price affects those two factors less because people think their promotional activities and availability of products is easier.

5 Limitations

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In some cases, we found it difficult to collect personal information such as family income. Few of the respondents refused to response for this field. Time shortage is also a problem in fieldwork. We also felt lack of experience in this kind of fieldwork.

6 Theory

Reputation is the way people will look at your company, it is what affects who shops at your store, who buys your products and who uses your services. When first starting up business, its need to have a clear idea at who it is marketing. If you want to be green, so you get all of the environmental people on your side, then you have to make your brand green. If you are selling to people who are willing to pay a premium price, you have to have quality in your brand.

Without a brand image which in some way reflects what you want to achieve, you won’t be able to meet your objectives, as you will get the wrong customers, or in the extreme case, no customers and this will lead to you making no money and therefore no profits. You have to set out with a clear target and the easier way for people to get the message of what you want to do, is through your brand image. Everything leads back to brand image, the promotion you do, the prices you sell your products at, even your staffs attitude. This is why brand image and brand reputation is so important! It defines your business.

Corporate reputation is related to brand. It is also intangible, and it also suffuses all areas of the business-at least insofar as every action taken affects the reputation of the firm. More, in the sense that ultimately reputation reflects not only the message sent but the message received, reputation and brand are strikingly similar.

Marketing mix is a term often used in marketing that stresses the mixing of a variety of factors in marketing strategies, in ways that both targeted consumers groups are reached, as well as organizational objectives are reached. Marketing mix involves four "P's", and the following paragraphs will discuss those four "P's".

The first "P" in the marketing mix is the Product. One of the most important aspects of good marketing is to be sure to produce products or services that meet your targeted consumer group's needs, as well as their desires. Define the characteristics of your products or services, ensure your products or services will meet the expectations of your targeted consumer group.

The next "P" in the marketing mix is the Price of your product. Price your products or services competitively. Deciding on a pricing strategy beforehand can really aid in making pricing decisions. How you price your products or services is just as important as the product itself. If your products and services are priced considerably higher than like products and services, you may have a harder time building clientele. On the other hand, if your price your products or services too low, you are bound to loose profits.

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Developing a pricing strategy, and pricing your products or services competitively, will likely get you the best results.

The third "P" in the marketing mix is product Promotion. It is vital to your new business to promote your products or services. When associated with the marketing mix, promotion can also include: advertising, selling, public relations, sales promotions.

Finally, the last "P" in the marketing mix is Place of distribution. You must have a place in mind to distribute your new product or service. There are many places available for consideration including: the internet, home based business, on-site facility.

7 Company at a Glance

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki. Nokia is engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries, with over 132,000 employees in 120 countries, sales in more than 150 countries and global annual revenue of over €42 billion and operating profit of €2 billion as of 2010. It is the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones: its global device market share was 23% in the second quarter 2011. Nokia's estimated share of the converged mobile device market was 31% in the fourth quarter, compared with 38% in the third quarter 2010. Nokia produces mobile devices for every major market segment and protocol, including GSM, CDMA, and W-CDMA (UMTS). Nokia offers Internet services such as applications, games, music, maps, media and messaging through its Ovi platform. Nokia's joint venture with Siemens, Nokia Siemens Networks produces telecommunications network equipment, solutions and services. Nokia is also engaged in providing free digital map information and navigation services through its wholly owned subsidiary Navteq.

Nokia has sites for research and development, manufacture and sales in several countries; as of December 2010, Nokia had R&D presence in 16 countries and employed 35,870 people in research and development, representing approximately 27% of the group's total workforce. The Nokia Research Center, founded in 1986, is Nokia's industrial research unit consisting of about 500 researchers, engineers and scientists; it has sites in seven countries: Finland, China, India, Kenya, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Besides its research centers, in 2001 Nokia founded (and owns) INdT – Nokia Institute of Technology, a R&D institute located in Brazil. Nokia operates a total of 9 manufacturing facilities located at Salo, Finland; Manaus, Brazil; Cluj, Romania; Beijing and Dongguan, China; Komárom, Hungary; Chennai, India; Reynosa, Mexico; and Masan, South Korea. Nokia's factory in Cluj was seized by the Romanian government in November 2011 to prevent a sale of the assets, after Nokia had accumulated a tax liability of US$ 10 million. Nokia's industrial design department

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is headquartered in Soho in London, UK with significant satellite offices in Helsinki, Finland and Calabasas, California in the US.

Nokia is a public limited-liability company listed on the Helsinki, Frankfurt, and New York stock exchanges. Nokia plays a very large role in the economy of Finland; it is by far the largest Finnish company, accounting for about a third of the market capitalization of the Helsinki Stock Exchange (OMX Helsinki) as of 2007, a unique situation for an industrialized country. It is an important employer in Finland and several small companies have grown into large ones as its partners and subcontractors. In 2009, Nokia contributed 1.6% to Finland's GDP, and accounted for about 16% of Finland's exports in 2006.

The Nokia brand, valued at $25 billion, is listed as the 14th most valuable global brand in the Interbrand/BusinessWeek Best Global Brands list of 2011. It is the 14th ranked brand corporation in Europe (as of 2011), the 8th most admirable Network and Other Communications Equipment company worldwide in Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list of 2011 , and the world's 143th largest company as measured by revenue in Fortune Global 500 list of 2011. In July 2010, Nokia reported a drop in profits by 40%, which turned into an operating loss of EUR 487 million in Q2 2011. In the global smartphone rivalry, Nokia held the 3rd place in 2Q2011, trailing behind Samsung and Apple.

On 11 February 2011, Nokia announced a partnership with Microsoft where all future Nokia smartphones will be powered by the Windows Phone 7 (WP7) operating system. On 26 October 2011, Nokia unveiled its first WP7.5 powered handsets Lumia 710 and 800.

The predecessors of the modern Nokia were the Nokia Company (Nokia Aktiebolag), Finnish Rubber Works Ltd (Suomen Gummitehdas Oy) and Finnish Cable Works Ltd (Suomen Kaapelitehdas Oy).

Nokia's history starts in 1865 when mining engineer Fredrik Idestam established a groundwood pulp mill on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids in the town of Tampere, in southwestern Finland in Russian Empire and started manufacturing paper. In 1868, Idestam built a second mill near the town of Nokia, fifteen kilometres (nine miles) west of Tampere by the Nokianvirta river, which had better resources for hydropower production. In 1871, Idestam, with the help of his close friend statesman Leo Mechelin, renamed and transformed his firm into a share company, thereby founding the Nokia Company, the name it is still known by today.

Toward the end of the 19th century, Mechelin's wishes to expand into the electricity business were at first thwarted by Idestam's opposition. However, Idestam's retirement from the management of the company in 1896 allowed Mechelin to become the company's chairman (from 1898 until 1914) and sell most shareholders on his plans,

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thus realizing his vision. In 1902, Nokia added electricity generation to its business activities.

The seeds of the current incarnation of Nokia were planted with the founding of the electronics section of the cable division in 1960 and the production of its first electronic device in 1962: a pulse analyzer designed for use in nuclear power plants.  In the 1967 fusion, that section was separated into its own division, and began manufacturing telecommunications equipment. A key CEO and subsequent Chairman of the Board was vuorineuvos Björn "Nalle" Westerlund (1912–2009), who founded the electronics department and let it run at a loss for 15 years.

The technologies that preceded modern cellular mobile telephony systems were the various "0G" pre-cellular mobile radio telephony standards. Nokia had been producing commercial and some military mobile radio communications technology since the 1960s, although this part of the company was sold some time before the later company rationalization. Since 1964, Nokia had developed VHF radio simultaneously with Salora Oy. In 1966, Nokia and Salora started developing the ARP standard (which stands for Autoradiopuhelin, or car radio phone in English), a car-based mobile radio telephony system and the first commercially operated public mobile phone network in Finland. It went online in 1971 and offered 100% coverage in 1978. In 1988, Jorma Nieminen, resigning from the post of CEO of the mobile phone unit, along with two other employees from the unit, started a notable mobile phone company of their own, Benefon Oy (since renamed toGeoSentric).  One year later, Nokia-Mobira Oy became Nokia Mobile Phones.

Probably the most important strategic change in Nokia's history was made in 1992, however, when the new CEO Jorma Ollila made a crucial strategic decision to concentrate solely on telecommunications. Thus, during the rest of the 1990s, the rubber, cable and consumer electronics divisions were gradually sold as Nokia continued to divest itself of all of its non-telecommunications businesses.

8 Conclusions

Company reputation blends other facts that are seen as sever issue in poor reputed company. Nokia has created a brand image that is wrapped with quality, convenience, promotion. They have also created loyal customer whose attitude toward company can’t be hampered with little price difference.

9 Recommendations

Promotional activities should be taken to optimize customer attitude to the company. Customer service centers should have more speed and ease of formality. They should set up customer call center to give instant service to any problem. Pricing of the products can be reduced to get more attention of the customer. More availability of the product should be ensured to get faster in service.

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10 Exhibits

1 Questionnaire

Questionnaire On Building Brand Reputation Through Marketing Mix

Survey Instrument

Instructions:1. The estimated time to complete this questionnaire is about 15 minutes. 2. Please be as honest as possible with your answers. Please be known that there is no right or

wrong answer. 3. Your participation in this study is confidential and your responses will remain secret. 4. Thank you for your participation.

Respondent’ Name: _________________________________________________________________

Address : _________________________________________________________________

Interviewer : _________________________________________________________________

Student ID : ______________________________________ Code: __________________

Name of the Brand:

Call :

Gender : 1. Male 2. Female

Marital Status : 1. Married 2. Single

Lives in : 1. Urban Area 2. Rural Area

Age : 1. Less than 20 years

2. 20 years to less than 30 years

3. 30 years to less than 40 years

4. 40 years to less than 50 years

5. 50 years to less than 60 years

6. 60 years or above

Education : 1. Illiterate

2. Can Read and Write

3. Primary School Completed

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4. Junior High School Completed

5. SSC Completed

6. HSC Completed

7. Under Graduation Completed (BA, BSc, BBA, MBBS etc.)

8. Graduation Completed (MA, MSc, MBA, MDS etc.)

9. Post-Graduation Completed (MPhil, PhD etc.)

10. Other (Please Specify: ___________________________________)

Family Income: 1. Less than taka 15,000

2. Taka 15,000 to less than taka 25,000

3. Taka 25,000 to less than taka 35,000

4. Taka 35,000 to less than taka 45,000

5. Taka 45,000 to less than taka 55,000

6. Taka55,000 or above

Following is a list of different questions related to the brand name given at the top. Choose any number from 1 to 5 by Circling the appropriate one that applies to you for each statement.

Marketing Mix: (Scaling from “Highly disagreed” to “Highly agreed” on a 5-point scale): 1 = Highly Disagreed, 5= Highly Agreed

Code Items Scale

BR_MIX_01 Rate the brand reputation of above brands in terms of “Product” i.e quality.

1 2 3 4 5

BR_MIX_02 Rate the brand reputation of above brands in terms of “Price” i.e. affordability

1 2 3 4 5

BR_MIX_03 Rate the brand reputation of above brands in terms of “Promotion” i.e.Advertising & Communication.

1 2 3 4 5

BR_MIX_04 Rate the brand reputation of above brands in terms of “Place” i.e. Convenience in availability

1 2 3 4 5

Brand Reputation: (Scaling from “Highly disagreed” to “Highly agreed” on a 5-point scale): 1 = Highly Disagreed, 5= Highly Agreed

Code Items Scale

BR_RUPT_01 I consider above as most favorable brand in terms of brand reputation.

1 2 3 4 5

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BR_RUPT_02 I consider above as most publicly recognized brand in terms of brand reputation.

1 2 3 4 5

BR_RUPT_03 I consider above as most reliable brand in terms of brand reputation.

1 2 3 4 5

BR_RUPT_04 I consider above as most consistent brand in terms of brand reputation.

1 2 3 4 5

11 References:

1. Wikipedia2. Nokia Website3. Marketing Research – 6th edition by Naresh K. Malhotra & Satyabhushan Dash.4. www.claritas.com 5. www.quicksprout.com 6. www.cleaneastline.com 7. Money.cnn.com8. www.urbandictionary.com 9. www.ft.com 10.

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