Marketing Management II

CASE V – “The Wall Street Journal”

SECTION-B

SUBMITTED TO : PROF. SHYAM VYAS , PH.D. S UBMITTED BY: GROUP

NO. - 8

DUE DATE: 16/11/2010 S UBMITTED ON:

16/11/2010

(Member Detail)
Summary
The Wall street journal was a market leader when it began however due to laxity in making the
proper marketing decisions the firm is now playing second fiddle to USA Today. Until the late
1970s, the Journal’s circulation was largely restricted to New York and other financial centers
in the United States. This case is an example where in a firm which is at the top has to
continuously keep evolving in order to be at the top. The company did not have the proper
marketing mix because of which it lost readers rapidly to the competitors.

The Journal’s environment continues to change – perhaps at a faster pace than ever. After the
marketing research team surveys the company has come to the conclusion of taking important
decisions regarding the future of the firm which it should have taken earlier. The case gives the
classic example of USA Today in which the firm did well in gaining market share by involving
itself in to proper sales promotion in which it signed up with General mills products urging the
customers to take a free 6 month subscription of the papers, although this resulted in a loss for
the firm it made a brand name for the firm.

The Wall Street Journal still has a chance to become the market leader as is evident from the
nationwide poll of the Los Angeles times where in the journal was found to be the most trusted
source of information by the people of USA. The case shows the importance of the marketing
concepts of the Product, Place, Promotion and Pricing, and how these concepts can affect the
performance of a firm as has been shown for The Wall Street Journal.

Questions & Answers

1. Using the information provided in the case, complete a situation analysis of the Journal.
What constitutes a situation analysis? “An astute marketer is always in a situational
analysis mode” – do you agree? Why?
Sol. 1 Situation analysis is a marketing term, and involves evaluating the situation and trends in a
particular company's market. It includes an examination of both the internal factors (to identify
strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (to identify opportunities and threats).
A. Customers:
Consumer is becoming more conscious and only wants information relevant to him/her. e.g.:
Regarding career goals, Business decisions and personal financial planning. 40 % live in largest
metropolitan areas in the U.S., 80% are in business or the professions, 40% hold management
titles, 40 % work for small businesses.
B. Company:
 Wall Street Journal’s focus is only on newspapers business.
 According to nationwide poll by the Los Angeles Times, the Journal is America’s most
trusted information medium.
 It was started in 1889 and it is U.S.’S First Daily Newspaper. Since then, it has seen various
changes in business environment and many twists and turns in the publishing industry.
 Their goal is to increase the circulation and regain the lost ground to other competitors.
 C. Competitors:
The major competitor is USA Today with a majority market share now; also there is competition
from New York Times-National Edition, Investor’s Daily, and Financial Times. A 1986 market
survey revealed that the readership of Journal was lesser as compared to USA Today.

2. Describe what you think is the ideal Journal target market. Why?
Sol. 2 The target market should consist of students of higher education, job-seekers, executives
of middle and upper class, entrepreneurs and working women. According to us, Journal needs to
increase its focus on getting a younger audience which forms a larger part of the population.

 Students need to read good editorials to shape up their thought process in their business
learning stage. Higher education students need to update themselves regularly with current
news.
 Executives, entrepreneurs have to constantly guard against competitors marketing strategies,
new products, their share fluctuations to name a few.
 There should be a major focus on the working women as our reach is currently low when it
comes to women readers. Only thirteen percent of our readers are women. This has to be
increased.

3. Identify possible objectives that might be a party of a marketing plan.

Sol. 3 Some points we think Journal should emphasize on:

 Journal should focus on increasing women readership which is very low at 13 %. They can
include supplements on any weekday dedicated to women.
 They should research and see the preferences and tastes of the people in countries they have
presence. Moreover they can target for expanding their business outside U.S. in specific time
by specific amount.
 Focus can be on hiring or roping in established editors, eminent personalities and established
people in the industry having high writing skills to write for journal either on regular basis or
for guest columns.
 The journal can expand the business both horizontally as well as vertically; it can come up
with its own fortnightly Magazine that gives a more detailed description of the outside world
events and has articles of experts, which greatly benefits the target group.
 Also the Journal can try to increase the target base by focusing on the entertainment section
more and increase the reader base further, coming out with the a Journal Magazine that
exclusively gives entertainment news can further increase the target market for the journal.
 They can also provide online subscription and distribution of newspapers as today people are
very busy, and a lot of them prefer accessing the newspaper online.
4. What elements of the marketing mix can you identify in this case?
Sol. 4 There are various elements of marketing mix, which can be seen in this case.
a) Product : With regards to Product, Journal’s plans include
 Provide the reader with a timelier and tightly edited newspaper.
 Group related stories and use more graphics, charts, and statistical summaries to enhance
ease of use.
 Increase coverage of daily developments and broad trends affecting readers’ career goals,
business decisions, and personal financial planning.
 Permit inclusion of more late breaking news by retooling pagination system.
 A section of the newspaper devoted to general interest stories, arts and entertainment
coverage, and articles on personal finance in order to attract more readers other than the
regular business executives.

b) Place:
 Journal decided to expand 154-city private delivery network (740, 000 Journals were
delivered by this system in 1988) to increase speed and reliability of delivery.
 They have planned to build more printing plants in overseas locations to speed overseas
delivery.
c) Price:
The annual subscription fee for the Journal is in excess of $100. This signifies that their
focus has been on higher end executives who are willing to pay for the newspaper which
is perceived to be of high quality. They have also targeted the corporate for bulk orders.

d) Promotion:
 USA Today ran ads within the paper citing the study and proclaiming that “USA Today’s
readership is the industry’s largest.”
 USA today tied up with General mills and General Mills offered 6 months subscription of
the paper at lower cost with their products.
 A 1986 nationwide poll by the Los Angeles Times found the Journal to be America’s
most trusted information medium. They can try to use the results of these surveys to
promote their newspapers.

Relationship to Concepts

 Market Research: The management of Wall Street Journal has conducted market
research in order to identify several areas for possible action during the next year.
 Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning: The Journal targeted the business segment
of customers with their financially oriented daily newspaper.
 Position Defense: The Wall Street Journal is the most trusted newspaper. The nationwide
poll by Los Angeles Times and the annual survey by Fortune have confirmed the same.
Thus the defense strategy of the Journal has to focus on these details.
 Marketing Intelligence System: It is a set of procedures and source managers obtain
everyday information about development in the marketing environment. The results of
the surveys conducted by the Journal and the inferences obtained from the marketing
research conducted by them shows that they have a well-developed mechanism for
analyzing the marketing environment.