This research established that fishskin leather is still in the introductory stage of its product life cycle, in spite of the fact that the leather has been in existence for more than 200 years. The reasons why such an innovative product did not have more widespread prestige were studied. It was found that a critical factor was a need for a change in attitude about the leather by both manufacturers and consumers. Further, there appeared to be little activity directed towards overcoming the observed negative image of a product made from the skin of fish, which could be improved by more effective marketing and persuasive advertising. The marketing environment was studied in order to establish how it works and what effect it might have on the marketing of fishskin leather products; consumer acceptance of fishskin leather was also examined, the -research then included a series of steps for grounded theory building according to Eisenhardt and Dibb and Simkin. This work was designed to contribute to the innovation-development process, to include consumer acceptance of fishskin leather products. As a result, a model was constructed by modifying that of Albrecht, Horne, Kunz and Stout to produce an international and national model of fishskin leather marketing channels. Survey and statistical research began with the isolation of a representative sample from the target population consisting of tanners, designers, manufacturers and retailers - a city centre survey of the opinions of shoppers was also carried out, as were a series of case studies. From the literature and interviews, significant variables were selected so that a questionnaire could be constructed, and pilot tested prior to circulation. Two forms of analysis were applied to the collected data. The first was descriptive which allowed the data to be cleaned up and for the researcher to become more familiar with the data. Descriptive statistics were followed by submitting normally distributed data to the multivariate techniques of factor and cluster analysis. The statistical analysis identified that the most important new product characteristics were quality, craftsmanship, price and style, and that the most successful marketing strategies were those of product and price of the retail marketing mix or the four p's product, price, place and promotion. This research has produced a better understanding of the factors involved in the diffusion of fishskin leather. It has also identified the strategic methods and marketing innovation activities needed for the marketing of fishskin leather products.

The South African health care industry is characterised by strict regulation in the form of the Medical Schemes Act of 2000, high medical inflation, a deteriorating public health care system; and costly private health care schemes which are only available to the higher end of the market. Before 1992, medical inflation rose in double digits (over 20%) and medical aids traditionally responded by raising premiums considerably (Pile, 2004:19). Private health care was expensive, while the public health care system deteriorated. The financial sustainability of schemes depended on the number of young, healthy members remaining on the scheme as these members cross-subsidised the sick. For these members though, medical aids did not offer any incentive and/or reward to remain members of the scheme. The ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ principle of traditional schemes did not provide any value to members and led to young, healthy members leaving medical schemes. This tendency could potentially drive a health care industry to a meltdown (Pile, 2004:19). The South African health care environment is complex and dynamic, and within this environment, Discovery Health established itself as a successful and innovative company. The Discovery Health medical scheme is currently the largest open medical scheme in South Africa with 1.6 million members (Discovery A, 2004: on-line). Discovery is a specialist insurance company with four strong and distinct businesses (with a fifth business starting in partnership with UK insurance company Prudential in 2005). The businesses are Discovery Health, Discovery Life, Discovery Vitality and Destiny Health (US). Discovery Health is the first business of the group and was launched in 1992. Discovery listed on the JSE in 1999. The company’s strategy is to grow the business organically by building a strong foundation of innovation and engaging people in the management of their health in order to achieve better social and financial outcomes (Discovery A, 2004: on-line). While a medical aid would be an essential ‘commodity’ which consumers would not normally aspire to buy, Discovery positioned itself as a value-adding company that provides products and services that consumers want to buy. The Vitality HealthStyle programme for e.g., is similar to a loyalty programme, but with the aim of motivating members to improve their health. Members can earn points and move up different status levels by performing certain preventative activities for e.g. working out at the gym and having cholesterol and glaucoma screening tests done. Depending on their status, members can qualify for discounts on certain health and lifestyle benefits (Discovery A, 2004: on-line). The advantage of this is that while Vitality adds value to the Discovery product, it also improves the general health of members and in turn, decreases claiming from the medical scheme and assists in the overall management of the financial risk to the scheme. The company’s life assurance business was launched in 2000 and profits from this section of the business constituted 40% of operating profits in August 2004. The company succeeded in integrating the Discovery Health, Vitality, and Life product offerings through the Payback Benefit (Discovery A, 2004: on-line). This benefit allows Discovery Health members who are also Discovery Life policy holders to receive back a substantial percentage of their life assurance premiums, based on how they manage their health. / H.B. Klopper

As the deregulation of the mobile number portability (MNP) and the emergence of such new technologies and services as PHS and 3G, the mobile telecommunications industry in Taiwan becomes highly competitive than ever. Under such competition, customer churning and profit declining have become of great concerns to mobile service providers. In response, most of providers continuously develop and introduce new value-added products and services. Frequent value-add products and services might strengthen customers¡¦ loyalty (i.e., decrease customer churning) and improve gross profits, but the corresponding marketing cost would also be increased dramatically. To lower the marketing cost and respond to market quickly, marketing staff typically adopts a pilot test based on the simple random sampling (SRS) approach or relies on marketing experts for defining potential target market for a new value-add product or service. The former approach requires a large number of respondents in the pilot test, while the latter is knowledge intensive and may suffer from unavailability of knowledge due to turnover of experienced marketing experts. In this thesis, we propose a novel approach for efficient and effective search for the target market for a new product/service. Specifically, we consider the target market of a new product or service being that of the most similar existing product/service, where the similarity of products/services can be defined based on either their product/service attributes or the similarity between the pilot test of the new product/service and the customer-base of an existing product/service. Accordingly, we propose two target market prediction models for new product/service, i.e., ¡§customer-based target market prediction model¡¨ and ¡§product-attribute-based target market prediction model.¡¨ Our empirical results show that the proposed prediction models are more effective in predicting potential customers for new products/services than traditional approaches.

The birth of the first low earth orbit satellite network for packet switched data, was received with much enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was quickly dampened as solution developers went into Chapter 11 (protected liquidation in the USA) and faded away because the introduction of new technology to the market has not been so obvious - the aspects of commercialisation was not taken care off with the necessary caution. The basis of this study is to establish and assess reasons why commercialisation has been so difficult for solution developers using low earth orbit satellite communication in the high technology market, while it has been such a long awaited technology in the remote monitoring and telemetry fields In today's economy, the marketing of innovative technologies is of critical importance. Innovations succeed or fail in the marketplace based not just on the soundness of the technology, but also on a company's skills at bringing that technology to market and getting it adopted by customers. Unfortunately, traditional approaches to consumer or industrial marketing often prove inadequate when it comes to the introduction of new products in domains such as telecommunications. This study concentrates on and defines the additional aspects surrounding the commercialisation of discontinuous high technology products in new industrial markets. Keywords: Commercialisation, product life cycle, crossing the chasm, product development, market development, sales cycle, discontinuous innovation. / Prof. L. Pretorius

This diploma thesis focuses on marketing. The main aim of the thesis is to design marketing activities for specific company. The goal of the proposed marketing activities is to increase the attendance of the specific company shop by at least ten percent. The results of the work lead to recommendations for the future.

This thesis analyzes the products of Toyota Motor Czech spol. s.r.o. which is a company operating on the Slovak and Czech car market. The work is based on the theoretical knowledge described in the first part. The first part is then followed by a practical section, in which I first describe the current market situation in the automotive industry in Czech and Slovak Republic. Further I characterize the company Toyota Motor Czech spol. s.r.o. itself, then I describe the most important car models and related market segments. Later in the practical part I analyze the models of Toyota in terms of price and marketability over the competition. The final section summarizes the information obtained and gives some recommendations that the company could use in the future to improve the position of individual models.

Two important issues regarding international market entry strategy remain largely unexplored: international launch time window (the elapsed time between product launch in the home country and launch in the focal country) and country sequence. First, I investigate the factors that drive international launch time window and its impact on the performance of new products in foreign markets. The results show that launch time window is positively associated with word of mouth, but negatively related to prelaunch advertising efforts and foreign demand potential. Second, I examine the determinants of the sequence of countries in which firms introduce new products and its impact on performance in foreign countries. The findings include that a country‘s order in the international launch sequence of a new product affects the product‘s performance in that country. Country order is negatively related to country revenues. A country‘s cultural distance (economic openness) is positively (negatively) associated with its order in the sequence. I also find that there is cross-country spillover effect - lagged revenues from other countries and lagged marketing efforts in the home country are positively related to a new product‘s revenues in the focal foreign country. The more culturally sensitive a product, the earlier culturally closer countries are in the launch sequence for that product. Based on the cross-country performance spillover effects, I recommend a launch sequence that can maximize overall performance in foreign markets.

This thesis is based on theoretical knowledge of the marketing mix tools and analysis that form an integral part of the work. In the practical part the company Prowork is described and analyzed. Based on my analysis I made suggestions and recommendations how to increase sales and reputation of the company. The aim of my thesis is to propose an improvement of the marketing mix of Prowork Company, Ltd., focused on production and sales of the professional chairs and armchairs.

The diploma thesis deals with proposals of appropriate marketing activities for the company Dalešické cukrářství that are aiming to expand the product in a particular region. The results of these proposals should increase the brand awareness and the growth of sales. The proposals are build on results of analyzes based on theoretical knowledge.

This Master´s thesis deals with the marketing mix of the company. My thesis is divided into three parts - theoretical, analytical and proposal part. The theoretical part focuses on explanation of basic concepts related to my work. The analytical part is about the introduction of the company and analysis of individual methods of marketing mix. Based on the analysis, various proposals are suggested to improve the marketing mix and to raise the brand awareness for the products of the company.