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ASSESSMENT TASK 2: SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING
Worth: 20%
Type: Individual submissions
Words: 1500 words excluding reference lists/bibliography
Submission: Wattle due date
Content Coverage: Weeks 1 to 8 inclusive of textbook chapters, tutorial experiences, seminar
information, Wattle book content through to Week 8, and your own independent research.
This document: A follow up to the broader guidelines on Wattle.
OVERVIEW
Welcome back to the Marketing Assessment Guides. You are about to undertake a specific task
exercise in two parts. The first task is to identify the audience of interest for your project. This
audience will then form the basis for Assessment Task 3. You could say that Assessment Task 2 is a
document of consequences since you’ll be acting on decisions from this document in Assessment
Task 3. We’re getting into the specific requirements time in the projects. There’s no index,
abstract, executive summary, or TOC. Just the coversheet and the five parts of the assignment.
CASE STUDY PRODUCTS
For Semester 2, 2023, the assignment will use one of the following commonly available food
products. Links are to the Woolworths online shopping are provided below. At this site you can see
the price, and relative availability of the product. Your task is to use the real-world marketing
activities of one of these three firms, regarding this specific product1, to determine one specific
market segment that this organisation is addressing, one it could address, and one it should avoid.
No purchase is required to enter this assessment task.
A B C
Coca-Cola Classic
Soft Drink Bottle 600ml
Red Bull Purple Edition
Sugar Free 250ml
Maggi 2 Minute Beef Flavour
Instant Noodles 5 Pack
1 Size, volume, unit, and flavour are specified. This is the product from the extended range of products that
these organisations offer that you will use for your projects.
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SPECIFIC TASK REQUIREMENTS (THE FOUR SECTIONS TO BE GRADED)
For this task, you are commissioned to be precise, concise, and specific. Please adhere to the
following requirements, as this is part of the technical challenges you will face in working in the
marketing industry.
Based on your choice of ONE of the THREE case study products address the following questions
• Part 1: Background (250 words)
Write a brief background and description of the product and the company making the product
(~250 words). This section requires you to explain the value offer of that specific product – with
the use of reference to theories describing product, value, and value offers.
Please ensure that this value offer is compatible with the audience identified in Part 2.
• Part 2: Current Local Audience (500 words)
Identify a single, specific, and narrow current local Australia audience for that product. Be
precise. Be concise. Be specific. Use several market segmentation variables in combination to
describe this audience, as this audience will form the basis of your Assessment Task 3.
Justify your recommendations with a combination of marketing segmentation theory, and
visible evidence from the marketing practices of the company. The audience must be local to
company’s operation, and you must be able to demonstrate evidence that the audience is being
addressed via existing recent marketing activity of the organisation.
• Part 3: The Next Possible Local Audience (500 words)
Identify and recommend one ‘new’ Australian based audience for the company to expand into
which would be either:
o (a) compatible with the current value offer without requiring change to the value offer
OR
o (b) compatible with the current audience and requiring change to the value offer
You will be required to refer to marketing segmentation theory in how you describe this ‘new’
market. This section will also require a discussion of the positioning and targeting of the firm’s
value offer. You are operating within a restricted request here and will be graded according to
how well you manage that restriction.
• Part 4: Not our Audience (250 words)
Identify and recommend against an incompatible local audience who would not be suited to
using the product given the current (Part 2) and expansion (Part 3) audience. You are being
asked to identify a market to be avoided because of incompatibility between the audience and
the value offer, or the audience and the existing positioning and targeting of the organisation.
• Part 5: Reference List (Not counted to the assignment word count)
You will need a list of the references that you have used to create your response. We want to
see the evidence of the application of theory, concepts, and frameworks from marketing.
Go beyond just citing the textbook and explore what is know about market segmentation.
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Part 3: Extended Notes
For Part 3, please note:
• You are implementing an Ansoff Matrix strategy. Identify, cite, and explain as required.
• You are recommending an audience to extend the focus of the organisation based on your first
target audience (Part 1). The firm may already be addressing this audience in practice,
however, for simplicity of the simulation exercise, we will recognise this as a “new” audience.
• Compatibility is subjective, and can be supported with argument, theory and/or evidence. The
challenge is to be able to say, “From Audience 1, we can expand into Audience 2”.
Part 4: Extended Notes
For Part 4, please note:
• You can get creative in your selection of an incompatible audience.
• Incompatibility can be judged against the value offer of the product or the compatibility of the
audiences.
• A measure of a marketer is in how they can exclude an audience for being the wrong market fit
as much as they can include an audience as a good fit.
• There is no universality in marketing, so there is always an audience who does not want the
offer you are providing.
COVER SHEET: FEEDBACK REFLECTION
(50 to 200 words, Not counted to the word count)
How have you acted on the feedback from Assessment 1 in the development of your assessment
submission? How have you built on prior strengths, or acted on recommendations for improvement
or consistent delivery? Reflect on this and provide a reply to the reviewer comments to instruct us
on how you’ve reacted to our feedback.
The coversheet is available on Wattle. It will textmatch with other submissions, so we’re expecting
that to happen.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
LO 1: Define, explain, and illustrate marketing concepts, including the marketing mix, and their
application to profit oriented and non-profit organisations.
LO 3: Explain and illustrate the need for a marketing orientation in a competitive business
environment.
REQUIREMENTS: WHY 1500 WORDS?
This is a short essay submission, but not necessarily a small assessment task. In marketing, you are
frequently required to engage in detailed background research, preparation of information and
research, and development of ideas which are then presented in short, summary executive reports.
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The structure is fixed and specific to allow you to focus on the delivery of the requirements to use
theory, reverse engineer the active practice of your target organisation and then apply your
interpretation as to the next compatible audience for them to target, and an incompatible
audience for them to avoid.
REQUIREMENTS: HOW TO DELIVER
Step 1: Attend the seminar and the tutorials. Review the task activity. Remember that everything
learnt to date can be applied.
Step 2: Understand that the requirements of the task include your own research activity, and
secondary data collection through observation, research, and reverse engineering the actions of a
real-world company.
Step 3: Accept and respect the cascade of decisions inherent in outlining a value offer that can
apply to two or more audiences.
Step 4: Deliver on the task requirements even if you wanted to write a different essay about a
different product.
Step 5: Integrate the feedback from the Assessment Task 1 is help improve your overall
performance as a student of marketing.
Step 6: Check your essay to see if you’ve adequately and appropriately acknowledged the influence
of marketing thought, recognised, and taken the opportunities to use citations, and made use of
the copious amount of academic thought on market segmentation as part of your theory set.
MANDATORY REFERENCING REQUIREMENT
References are required. Electing not to use reference will be regarded as a deliberate action.
We probably even gave you feedback about the citations and references use, positive or
development, to encourage people to lean into the opportunity. When we talk about using
marketing theory, we are talking about named concepts from marketing.
If you have used the ANU Library to find a book, book chapter or article that writes about a
marketing idea, that’s a theory. Market segmentation is a theory and consists of multiple
component parts that are also discussed, debated, and explored in the academic literature.
Use these ideas, and you’re using theory. Cite these ideas, and you’re using references
appropriately. Remember, the ANU Library and Google Scholar are here as assets to enable your
success in these assignments.
REFERENCING FORMAT
I prefer to write my work in APA. Your mileage will vary. You should develop a preference and work
to that – most of marketing is probably going to use APA, although for some reason, IEEE
referencing (https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/IEEE/in-text-citations) still exists as a going concern.
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OTHER TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS
• A4 page, default margins (2.54 cm or 2.5 cm)
• Font
o Times, 12 pt
o Trebuchet or Arial, 11 pt
• Organisation of the Paper
o Go straight into the answers.
o Use the supplied headers.
• References
o Textbook, yes
o Slides, no
o Bonus readings, yes
o Materials you sourced via Google Scholar or ANU Library searches? Yes
o ChatGPT? No. Not even to do a summary of your paper.
• Citation Style
o Your preferred method, and if you have no preference, APA Style
• Text Match
o Do not copy and paste material into the assignment.
• Charts, Tables, Images and Direct Quotes
o Follow the appropriate embedding rules.
o A chart, table or image needs to have an identifier and a label, and their source.
§ Figure 1, Illustrative Example
§ [FIGURE]
§ Source: {Appropriately referenced}
o All charts, tables and images need to be embedded into the essay.
§ As illustrated in Figure x…
§ Figure 1. Header
§ Figure X is evidence of….
• First Person or Third Person is fine.
o Not second person though.
• Screenshots of advertising materials (e.g. social media accounts or websites) require
citations under the APA rules (or those governing your preferred style)
GENERAL EXPECTATIONS (CONNECTIONSFROM ASSESSMENT 1)
We are looking for you to succeed in the following key areas:
• written technique and the use of marketing language: Does the answer show you know
marketing, and how to communicate marketing ideas in technical language?
• Use of course content, including what we can reasonably expect you to have as marketing
knowledge based on the first eight weeks of the course.
• Use of external resources: You’re going to need to use the library and/or Google Scholar to find
things we haven’t already provided to you. If you’re just citing the textbook, you’re not putting
the yards in that we expect of you.
• Imperfectly done beats perfectly never achieved: Marketing is an iterative process. No product
is perfect, no offer suits everyone. Roll out the v1, and then iterate onwards based on market
feedback.
• Feedback should be integrated: The purpose of a learning opportunity is the opportunity it
provides to do things differently if change is needed or do things again in a similar style if past
success is supportive of future endeavour.
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• Academic Integrity: Write your own words – don’t copy and paste the words of others, since
there’s no perfect words in existence that answer question, you may as well use your own
words (with appropriate referencing) to get the points.
• This is the second training exercise with development outcomes: Your second encounter with
the requirements of marketing may be challenging. Segmentation is a mindset that requires
actively embracing the opportunity costs and cognitive dissonance of decision making.
• There are no perfect answers: There is no universal solution in marketing. There is validation,
justification, support from evidence and external source, and trial of ideas in the marketplace.
Sometimes the perfect product gets beaten by the imperfect value offer because consumers
liked the flaws more than the perfections. That’s the Kobayashi Maru of marketing.
THE GRADING CRITERIA/ GENERIC SUCCESS METRIC
All questions will be graded against the same criteria – it’s a sliding scale of expertise – to get to
the HD, you need to have cleared the requirements of Pass, Credit and Distinction, so if we don’t
mention it in HD, and it’s there in the Distinction, it still counts as required. Most grading in
MKTG2004 works to a 10-point scale (0-10), and we genuinely give out scores with no consideration
to bell curves, averages, or other magic thinking – this is criteria driven assessment, so each piece
is matched against the criteria.
Grade Words Used to Describe /10 Summary of Performance
EF Epic Fail 0 Reserved for the absence of effort, or something
unredeemable
F Fail 4 Inadequate with potential to recover
P Pass 5 An adequate performance
C Credit 6 A satisfying performance
D Distinction 7 Good with potential
HD High Distinction 8 Very good with potential for great
SHD Super High Distinction 9 Greatness with possibility
UHD Ultra-High Distinction 10 Top possible score.
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Criteria
0% - 40% CORRECTION REQUIRED
Scores in this band are a sign that we need to work out how to help you improve. Realistically,
either you left out the question (0%), or you gave such a short response we couldn’t find anywhere
to let you score points.
If you drop a set of bullet points instead of an essay, expect to park here until that essay shows up.
If you’ve plagiarised, and the text match is high, the bad news is that all of your points went to the
original authors and none of it went to you, so, you’re here, we’ll talk, and you’ll not do that
again.
You’ll be invited to contact the teaching team because we want to help. You’re not getting called
into the headmaster’s office, you’re getting a chance for additional coaching.
50% MINIMUM VIABLE PERFORMANCE
If you’ve chosen to not use references, we’re choosing to respect that decision to purchase a ticket
to this grade band. If you don’t want to cap out at Pass, use references.
If you’re here, and you did use references, this is the foundation upon which we are going to build
your future success. You’ve got the barebones of the answer, and maybe it’s nuance, or the detail,
or the explanation that’s missing – don’t worry though, we’re going to tell you, and we’re going to
work with you to get that technique fix into place.
When you get the feedback, you’ll probably also get an invite for a chat – take us up on the offer if
you want to do better, but equally, if you’re okay with pass’n’go as a score, we’re okay with
people taking up camp at the low end of the grade roster.
60% SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE
This is the middle ground of performance. Acceptable, and understandable, and the foundations of
future success.
This is a good grade band. If you’ve put a lot of effort in, and landed here, know that your effort
has been rewarded with a good score. If you coasted the assessment and got here, know that a bit
more effort and you’ve got the rest of the grade bands for the taking if you want them.
From here, you’ll get feedback about chasing the next tier of grade bands – it could be a technique
fix, it could be a consistency issue of high and low performance averaging downwards, or it could
be that you’ve gone in hard on one part of the task and left the others with less resources. Our aim
is to work on guiding you around that technical aspect of your performance.
70% VALUABLE PERFORMANCE
This is the start of something better than good. Distinctions are above the average, and above the
pack. You’re doing well, and there’s a very real opportunity here to either take the points and bank
them, move on, and reinforce those areas of strength. Equally, there might just be one or two
things keeping you out of the upper tiers –consistency, or a misunderstood technical element, or a
correctable error that can be resolved in future. It’s worth listening to where we’re reinforcing
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your technique – you don’t make Distinction without having several things go right, and we’re going
to want to see more of that in the future, because you’ve shown the marking team you can write
an essay that’s quality.
80% EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE
This is where we have seen a lot of strength, and still space to improve. An HD isn’t about
perfection, it's about a pathway towards greatness. You’ve acquired the skills and the knowledge of
the previous levels, and you’ve been mostly consistent throughout the paper – possibly the
occasional dip countered by a high point, and generally well delivered. We’re most likely to be
talking about your strengths in argument, referencing and evidence led approaches. You’re
demonstrating a clear understanding of the course content, the marketing language is present and
appropriate, and there’s a spark of insight, creative flair or extra understanding that lifted from
the Distinction to the High Distinction. We’ll focus the feedback on trying to capture that lightning
in a bottle, so it’s not written off as a fluke, chance, or dumb luck in future – you’re here in this
grade band because you’re great, and there’s still space to be greater.
90 OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE
This is where you have displayed strengths across many areas of performance, or distinctive style in
your chosen approach. This is along the road to greatness – still imperfect, because perfect is the
enemy of done, and marketing is about getting it done. Feedback may be scarce because you’ve
done a very good job, and we’ll try to emphasize the strengths so you can aim for recurrent
success.
In addition to nailing all prior requirements, this level is where there’s a certain spark of creativity
or insight or lateral thinking that’s hard to quantify in writing, but possible to identify and reinforce
in practice and training. It’s where you ‘get’ the content because you’ve laid down the groundwork
of reading, or training, or doing the hard yards, and it comes together on the performance.
100% ACE’D IT
This is where you’re better than you expected, and your delivery is hitting all the key points we
wanted to see, and possible showing us something we didn’t expect.
Banking the 100% means a lot to us, because it highlights the subject’s content back to us as the
marking team in a way that we didn’t necessarily expect, and we certainly can appreciate. There’s
spark, creativity, and technical prowess.
We’ll do what we can to emphasise the strengths so it can be a repeat performance, but we do
caveat that feedback with the understanding we’re not about to tell you how to do it better next
time. C’mon, 100% does not get a “Could try harder” sticker in this subject.
Take the acknowledge of the excellence and enjoy it. You’ve earned this success.
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CHANGE LOG
• Modified the question requirements.
• Added the geolock restriction to Australian based audiences.
• Reduced instances where spawning a new assessment task returned previous years question.
• Added case materials directly to the requirement document.
• Included specifications on Ansoff application
• Modified question state from AND to OR to create Turnitin Paradoxes.