Question

Explain the four parts of a Marketing Mix. What are the different ways you can define the products and/or services of your airline during the simulation? Explain the difference between advertising and publicity.

Answer 1

Answer to the question:

The four parts of a Marketing Mix are discussed below:

1. Product: It could be either a product as well as a service. Its main aim is to meet the requirements and demand of the customers. The benefits offered by the product or service, its features and the unique selling proposition of the same needs to be examined. Further, the likely to be buyers of the product are also needed to be identified.
2. Price: Price is the amount the customer is expected to pay for the product or service. Pricing of a product will control the sale of the product or service. Price should be fixed such that the perception of the customer must be satisfied. If a customer has perceived lower price for a product and it is being sold at higher price then customer is unlikely to purchase that product.
3. Promotion: Promotion includes all the selling strategy and techniques. Advertising, special offers, sales promotion are all part of it. The promotion must be suitable for the product as well as to the customers along with its pricing.
4. Place: Place is very important as it decides how the product will be delivered to the customer. For this, Distribution is a key factor. For increased selling, customer should have easy access to the products or services.

In airline simulator, you can choose the aircraft as per your choice and liking and after choosing one, deploy it for operation. Further, watch can be kept on the booking habits of the customers through a reservation system and it could be compared with other airlines also. The load factors of your selected airline could be monitored and compared with other airlines. Accordingly, the prices of the tickets and service levels for the aircraft could be adjusted.

Difference between advertising and publicity:

Advertising	Publicity
It is an act of advertisement of product and service and making their commercialization.	It is an act of providing just information about the product or service to make them liked by the people.
It is done by the company which produces product or provide service.	It is done others and it is the feedback of the product or service they are using.
It is costly method.	It is free of cost.
The advertisements and its contents are designed and controlled by the company itself.	It is not under the control of the company rather it is controlled by the people.
Advertisements bring about only the positive features of the product and services.	Publicity can bring about positive as well as negative features of the product and services.
The information credibility is very less as the company itself is giving.	The information credibility is very high since people give their feedback about the product or service.
It mainly focuses on its potential customer.	Its main aim to create awareness about the product or service.