MARKETING MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT
On

ONLINE PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES

By
M.H.SUDHARSAN
(2022201029)
MBA – 1st Year GM
Introduction
Marketing strategy of a company, in practice and theory,
is often replete with gaps. Often, marketers have
deviated from the theoretical principles to develop their
own set of rules that they have dubbed more useful in
marketing and selling their product. This paper is a case
study analysis of Rolex.
The main objective of the paper is to ascertain the gap
in the marketing strategy and principles adopted by
Rolex with that of the theoretical marketing framework
presented by McDonald in his ten world class marketing
principles (WCM). Further analysis of the marketing
practices of the company and a comparative case
analysis are presented in the paper. The paper begins
with a brief discussion of the company background

Marketing Strategy of Rolex

Rolex is a luxury watchmaker. The products that are
made and sold by Rolex are Rolex and Tudor. Rolex
markets its watches as luxury brands. The company is
well known for its unique targeting, segmenting, and
positioning of their product, which many believe has
helped them to maintain their position as a leader over
such as long period.
However, with the change in the generations and
ushering of the new generation who is more inclined
towards new fast moving technology than a timeless
timepiece, Rolex faces a challenge as to how they can
attract these new emerging customers. In this section,
we will first discuss the marketing strategy of Rolex
before moving on to enumerate the differences they
have with the world class marketing principles of
McDonald

The expansion on Twitter

On the same day of the launch of rolex.org, Rolex
also tweeted for the first time. Although possessing its
official account since 2012, the brand had not
communicated through this platform until now, favouring
other channels such as Instagram and Facebook
Historically, Rolex has always had a very product and
PR-oriented social media strategy, especially through
the promotion of its Ambassadors: who has not seen a
post of Roger Federer kissing a cup while featuring an
Oyster Perpetual Datejust II on his wrist? However, by
promoting the content of rolex.org and using Perpetual
on all its posts, it seemed that the brand wanted to use
Twitter to reposition its digital message towards the
company’s heritage and values.
However, from post 7 on, Rolex also started to promote
events, Ambassadors and news; content that was also
shared on its other social media platforms. Was the
philanthropic communication angle abandoned because
it did not cultivate enough success, or was it planned
ahead? Maybe Twitter is just not the right platform to
communicate around the brand’s universe.
According to Pauline Ventura, Social Media Project
Manager at DLG, “Twitter users are public information
seekers looking for entertaining content and trendy
topics. Twitter positions itself as THE platform that
shares news first and promotes events such as sports
competitions and talk shows, which would strongly be in
line with the PR activations that Rolex does with its
Ambassadors.”

The revamp of rolex.com

Rolex.com, the legendary website showcasing the
brand’s masterpieces has also gone through a great
digital revamp offering a brand-new design and
structure.
At first sight, we land on a very pure and modern
website where everything seems very “millennial-style”.
To name a few: big Instagram-like pictures, round-
shaped filters reminiscent of social media story bubbles,
a very mobile-friendly navigation, and a watch
configurator option where users can customize their
favourite timepiece.

On the customer journey side, the website architecture

is somewhat unusual as products are first divided into
“Classic watches” or “Professional watches” instead of
directly being listed under a specific collection. Many
thematic pages have also been created categorizing
watches based on gender and materials.

This is an SEO best practice that many luxury brands

still fail to implement.
For instance, having a dedicated “Gold watches” page
containing strategic keywords such as “rose gold” or
“white gold”- terms that are searched thousands of times
per month globally - will enable rolex.com to better rank
on SERPs (search engines result pages) when users
type these keywords. Benefits are multiple: on one
hand, search engines reward qualitative content-rich
websites, on the other, UX is also improved as users
land on a dedicated page that directly answers their
query.
Conclusion
Rolex is remarkable when it comes to the quality and
styling of its products. It charms up the personality of
people. Its watches work as a style statement for an
individual.
With its tremendous as well as luxurious marketing
strategies, the company owns a huge loyal customer
base, and almost every person with a style sense
desires to wear a Rolex's watch.
The brand is pretty luxurious and expensive that's why it
is meant to please only a specific category of people
who can actually afford a watch from the Rolex brand
and be cool with it.
The marketing strategies of Rolex are designed to reach
the target audience and fulfill the market requirements.
Its marketing strategies also include a brand
endorsement from celebrities and sponsoring any game
event. All these add up to the success of the extremely
prominent watch brand, Rolex.