Royal Mint Counts Down to London 2012 with Special Coin Essay

Royal Mint Counts Down to London 2012 with Special Coin - Essay Example Royal Mint is a government owned body under the ownership of HM Treasury. The company is located in South Wales and employees more than 900 people (Royal Mint, 2012) The Royal Mint has won the advantage of minting Olympic coins for the Olympic event to be held in London in 2012. For this, Royal Mint has started minting and distributing coins since 2009 and has even changed UK regulations to mint kilo gold coins in limited edition. In this paper, the aim is to develop a suitable marketing strategy, through a sound marketing research, for Royal Mint in order to generate good revenues from the venture (Royal Mint, 2009) Marketing Research Marketing Research has been defined by Philip Kotler as ‘the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific situation facing the company’ (Blankenship, Breen and Dutka, 1998; 7) While market research is only concerned with collecting data on the market and analyzing it, marketing research involves a broader spectrum. It provides information on the market, the customer as well as the community. It provides sound information to the marketing managers to develop a good marketing strategy based on the external environment as well as the internal environment. Marketing research allows decision makers to make the right marketing decision under guidance from the data collected. Marketing research is usually conducted for launching a new product in the market so that managers may make better decisions by understanding the market and the needs of the consumers. The most important aspect of every marketing research is the identification of the problem which is done through a proper knowledge of the background of the situation (Malhotra, et. al, 2002). Background of the Situation With the Olympic Games being held in London for 2012, the Royal Mint has been selected to commemorate the minting, distribution and marketing of the Olympic Coins. Royal Mint, for the designing of the coins, opened up a Royal Mint Public Competition for making the designs of the coins. Out of the 30,000 entries, only 29 designs were chosen for the different sports (BBC, 2010). Furthermore, the UK government changed its legislation to accommodate the new half kilo gold coins for the special occasion. Olympic Coins have been introduced in Olympic Games since the time of the Greeks. The purpose of the Olympic coins was to act as a souvenir for the games so that the ordinary people would relate with the game also. They should also become part of the legacy by buying the coins and eventually promoting Olympic Games (Preuss, 2004). Even though the Royal Mint is a leading coin producer in UK and has expanded into the global arena since a long time, it is the first time that the organization has been selected to mint coins for an occasion as big as the Olympic Games. Therefore in order to effectively launch and market its products, the organization needs to conduct a marketing research. Problem Definition Problem Definition is the most important aspect of the marketing research as it forms the foundation of the marketing research. If the researchers are able to identify the problem correctly, the marketing research is made easier and more effective. In the case of the Royal Mint, the problem is the effective manner of launching Olympic Coins in the public. Royal Mint has little or no experience in this particular field since they have not minted coins for commercial purposes on such a vast level. The question here is not whether to launch