Social Marketing Australian Reptile Park

Question: Discuss about the Social Marketing Australian Reptile Park. Answer: The Australian Reptile Park-The organization: The Australian Reptile Park is a reptile park and zoo logical garden located near Sydney which houses a wide variety of reptiles, mammals, invertebrates, birds and amphibians with special preference to Australian species. The park also has a venom section which collects venom and manufactures anti venom to save envenomed people. The Australian Reptile Park is a conservation centre for endangered animals and is a member of the Zoo and Aquarium Association ("About Us", 2017). Its venom program provides information about avoiding envenomation, first aid and medical centres to be approached in case of envenomation. Today, the park is a life saving organization and not a mere a profitable amusement park business. It is this humanitarian function of the park which can be extended to reach out to more people. Campaigning Method: The Australian Reptile Park campaigns its venom program by regular shows and training services to its visitors. The park also promotes the same through the hospitals, clinics and their health camps. The message about the venom program is also spread by various websites, including the parks official website. Australian Reptile Park-SWOT Analysis- Strengths: The Australian Reptile Park has a great collection of animals like reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds which make it a great attraction among the Australians and tourists. The park has a venom division which supplies anti-venom, thus making the application a legitimate addition to the products of the park. Weakness: The park is in Sydney and has limited access to the other parts of Australia where incidences of bites mostly take place. It cannot reach out to people to the required extent and help them out. Opportunities: The park is located in Sydney and can get the medical infrastructure required to fight venom affects in the victims. It can make use of the transport facilities available in Sydney like railways, roadways and airways to reach out to the people even, the ones living in the interior. It can maintain a standard pricing strategy for the shows and education services it provides to the people. Threats: There are places in Australia which have no access to modern technology, especially the areas inhabited by the tribal people. This hinders promotion of the mobile application which is heavily dependent on the technological advancement of various regions (Adams et al., 2015). Target Market of the Australian Reptile Park based on the 4 Ps of Marketing: Products are offerings to fulfil needs of consumers in return of money. They can be tangible (goods) or intangible (services) measurable in terms of quality, quantity and cost (Stark, 2015). The Australian Reptile Park has two types of customers, the visitors who come to see the animals for amusement or knowledge and the victims of bites ("Sydney Attractions Wildlife Park - Australian Reptile Park", 2017). The park provides training services to the people who come to see the animals and also provides facilities for private parties. Antivenom is the only product the park provides and its main customers are the hospitals and medical institutes which treat people bitten by poisonous animals. The park must also maintain a good collection of poisonous animals to obtain good quality venom (Pl et al., 2014). Pricing refers to the structure of prices which an organizations charges to its various group of customers. The park can maintain different pricing strategies for various types of consumers. The medical institutes should be charged less for the anti-venom so that they in turn can charge the patients less. The private party customers can be charged high so that the revenue generated can be used to maintain the zoo, especially, the venomous animals whose venom form raw materials for the ant-ivenom. The pricing education services should be affordable so that people irrespective of their income can participate in them and use the knowledge to save like of others and their own (McCardle Atkin, 2016). Place may refer to a physical place like Sydney or the digital space as in ace of applications. The park is situated in Sydney, which is one of the biggest cities in Australia, well connected to the national and international destinations. The extensive network of roads, railways, airways and waterways help the people to reach the park easily (Robson Dixit, 2017). This advantage of place also allows transportation of anti-venom with Sydney and outside easily. However, all the places of Australia are not equally accessible by conventional communication lines, necessitating the need for an application which can help a person in need even in the interiors of the country (Spooner, 2015). The park can set up medical centres in interior locations to reach out to the people living in those regions in case of an emergency (Mbemba, Gagnon Hamelin-Brabant, 2016). Figure 1. Diagram showing snake bite fatalities due to five species (Source: "Australia's Venomous Snakes: The Modern Myth", 2017) Figure 2. An article from The Telegraph reporting a fatality due to brown snake bite in Sydney . (Source: "Australian killed after deadly brown snake bite", 2017) Promotion refers to the method of informing the customers, suppliers and the other stakeholders about the existence of a product or a service. The product or the service may be the existing ones or new to the market. Promotion creates a market where the organization can sell its products and earn revenue. The reptile park can promote its products, especially its venom services through digital and print media. Its official website also provides useful information and even allows purchasing of tickets. The park can approach celebrities and publish editorials to promote itself (Potter Hill, 2016). The mobile application should be a part of the venom service which will allow the people living the interior regions to contact the nearest medical centres using the anti-venom produced by the park in case of an envenomation (Jang-Jaccard et al., 2014). Influence of the application on the people: The application of the reptile park available on the mobile handset can help many people to get emergency medical attention (Brian Ben-Zeev, 2014). The reptile park can educate people to deal with envenomation and also how to stay away from venomous animals. The application will have a tremendous positive effect on the people and will help them to get urgent medical aid if they are bitten (Pian et al., 2013). This can help the Australian Reptile Park to reach out to a large number of people simultaneously, thus increasing its span of operation. Many people of Australia live in the interior where medical aid is not easily available. This application can help such people because it will also raise alarm or an information trigger regarding the accident in the systems of the nearest medical centres to ensure fast action (Sun, Ho Chang, 2016). The people will also be educated about deadly animals and how to keep them away. Hence, this will also change their behaviour towards animals and they will also take steps to keep such animals away from their localities (Fryxell, Sinclair Caughley, 2014). Promotion of the application: A catchy message revealing the usefulness of the mobile application will inform people about it and also create a market for it. The hospitals and medical items suppliers also need to use the application to get the alarm triggered by a person in need (Brusse et al., 2014). The application will be advertised on the television on the channels like Discovery and National Geographic channels which have a very high viewership and are appropriate for the purpose. Attention grabbing message: The name of the application will be Antifangs written in red with a fang (poison injecting tooth in animals) with a drop of poison dripping from it which will tell about the purpose of the application. The tagline will be-Stay Away Fangs with the image of the fang created on the background of the Australian Reptile Park. The message will also promote that the application and the emblem are properties of the Australian National park. The application will be advertised between shows to grab the viewers attention repeatedly. Evaluation of the marketing plan: Marketing of the application will need continuous assessment to ensure that the promotions are really fruitful and the demand for the application keep on increasing. The market penetration of the application also needs to be judged in order to estimate how many people can be helped by it. The following are the steps to be taken to evaluate the strength of the message: Return on investment: The Australian Reptile Park should set up a separate team dedicated towards marketing and promotion of the application. The finance department should incorporate the values related to the application in the books of accounts and calculate the return from investment. A good increase will indicate better market penetration and more lives being helped and saved. This will also indicate a positive opinion of the people about the product (Mawson Lambert, 2016). Customer Response: The Australian Reptile Park should carry out a random survey among the people about their lifestyle, experiences about encounters with animals, any history of envenomation in their knowledge and so on. The surveyor at this point of time informs new customers about the application and if the customer already uses it, he should be asked about his view on it. The customers can also be encouraged to tell about an incident of envenomation after which the new application helped him get medical aid very fast. The response will also help the authorities to find new avenue in the market which can be explored to earn more revenue, the ultimate goal of an organization (Atapattu Sedera, 2014). Conclusion: Organizations like the Australian Reptile Park play a very significant role by providing antivenom to the medical institutes and helping them to save lives of the people bitten. However, like any other organization, they are limited to a specific area and cannot provide crucial help in far flung places. A mobile application can help these organizations to expand their areas of services and save peoples lives. Such an application has a great positive effect on the society and opens new avenue for earning revenue. A mobile application needs promotion so as to gain market penetration. The marketing strategies should be evaluated regularly to ensure expected performance of the applications in the market and high revenue. References: About Us. (2017). Australian Reptile Park - Wildlife Park Sydney Animal Encounters Australia. Retrieved 1 February 2017, from https://reptilepark.com.au/about/ Adams, J., Valery, P. C., Sibbritt, D., Bernardes, C. M., Broom, A., Garvey, G. (2015). Use of traditional Indigenous medicine and complementary medicine among Indigenous cancer patients in Queensland, Australia.Integrative cancer therapies,14(4), 359-365. 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