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In this essay I am going to create a Marketing Plan for a Brand called  ‘Highland Spring’, which is a supplier and producer of bottled water in the UK and Scotland. The Scottish firm was founded in 1979 and is owned by ‘Mahid Al Tajir’, but its CEO is ‘Les Montgomery’. Highland Spring produces still and sparkling bottled water, with its factory being located in Blackford, Perth and Kinross.  The water from Highland Spring is drawn from the Ochil Hills in Scotland. The brand is supplying water to all the biggest supermarkets in the UK and Scotland, including Tesco’s, Waitrose and Sainsbury. “Highland Spring is the UK’s leading producer of natural source water” (Highland Spring Group, 2017), it has a market share rate of 17.5% with a sales revenue exceeding 110 million pounds in 2017.

Throughout this Marketing Plan I will focus on how Highland Spring can differentiate itself from the competition and improve their position within their market.

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The success for every business within in this bottled water industry depends on the political condition within the business environment. How the government of the land supports the investment and if government regulations do not collide with product standards. Also, the government plays a big rule when it comes to the formation of alliances and if political officials support those. But, the government also supports bottled water companies to decrease the amount of alcoholic and sugary drinks in the market.

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Economic factors like the interest or inflation rate can have a great impact on the market. The decreasing growth and GDP rate of the UK economy has a negative impact on growth objectives of any brand. Besides, with the influence of the Brexit vote, uncertainty struck the markets, resulting in individuals withdrawing their investments, which is worsening the performance of the economy. Consequentially, the interest rate in the UK is at a record low, meaning that borrowing financials becomes cheaper for every frim and individual.

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Nowadays, the social behaviour is tipped towards a healthier lifestyle, leading to in an increase in demand for bottled water and non-alcoholic drinks.

“Consumers healthy hydration habits have buoyed demand for bottled water” (IBIS World, 2018)

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Technological advantages can make production and advertising easier and more efficient for a business. Within the bottled water industry there have been a few technological advantages in context with the packaging and filling of the bottles that can support a brand to become more cost efficient and productive.

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The environmental concerns have risen in the last few years, what means that bottled water companies have to figure out how to be more social responsible and ecological friendly, because of the damage plastic bottles can do to the environment as a whole. “Plastic bottles are a waste problem adding to landfill overload when not recycled” (Hu, Morton and Mahler, 2011)

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Within the industry for bottled water, every business is not allowed to exceed the legal levels of factors such as the rate of pollution created by the production of bottled water and the chemical levels in the product, to avoid a scandal and sanctions.

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One of the micro environmental factors is competition. The competitive structure of the bottled water industry can be analysed by Porter’s five competitive forces.

The threat of new entrants is relatively high within the industry due to the given support by the government for bottled water brands. The threat of substitute products is extremely high as a result of a grate number of firms supplying bottled water or alcoholic and sugary drinks into the overall market, giving consumers a great variety of products to choose from. The bargaining power of suppliers is certainly low within the industry for bottled water, in case of that most brands have their own source of water and package their products individually, which makes them not reliable on any outside suppliers. Bottled water companies like Highland Spring are more reliable on consumers actually buying their product, indicating a high bargaining power of consumers. Rivalry amongst existing firms can be described as intense, due to every brand selling nearly homogenous products and often only vary in price.

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Some strengths of Highland Spring include that their new bottle is made of 100% recycled plastic, showing corporate social responsibility to the public. Also, every bottle is filled and packaged at the base of the Ochil Hills, where the spring is located to assure the quality of the water (Highland Spring Official, 2018). Furthermore, the Highland Spring Group (2017) states that the UK bottled water market has shown a consistent annual growth rate of 8.1 and is expected to grow further due to the increase in demand for health products, which could be seen as a strength and an opportunity for the brand.

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One weaknesses of Highland Spring maybe the reliance on one source of supply, in this case the spring from which the water is drawn from. If any natural disaster or storm damages the spring or the way the water takes town the Ochil Hills, this could lead to a shortage in supply or to an increase in particles within the water, reducing the equality of the product.

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However, Highland Spring has a wide variety of opportunities to boost business performance. For example the increase in demand for healthy products can be seen as sign to evolve further into the industry. Also, the Highland Spring Group (2017) said: “Through improved production efficiencies and re-engineering our product range we will encourage lighter materials to mitigate short-term costs”, showing a window for improvement in the manufacturing process.

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However, Highland Spring also encounters some threats towards their business activities. The high competitive nature of the bottled water industry in the UK and the homogeneity of products in that market could result in price wars, which will consequentially diminish revenues for the brand.