Industry Analysis: Market Analysis of Product Category

Only write for Part 1 of the project. (about 1000 words) thank you!!
Course textbook: Kerin, & Hartley, Marketing,15th edition, McGraw-Hill Irwin.
MKTG 300.002
PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING – BRAND ANALYSIS PROJECT
* Important due dates are shown in class syllabus
Situation & Assignment
You’ve landed your first job as an assistant to a brand manager. Your boss, Miranda Priestly, wants to make sure your company’s brand (My brand is Tums) is remaining competitive, so she assigns you this project:
• Review all publicly available information related to your brand and the product category
• Prepare a detailed analysis of your brand and product category, and
• Make three recommendations to improve your brand’s competitive position based on the findings of your research. Your recommendations should be specific to the US market.
Product Category
The product category for your class is over-the-counter medicines. Note that there are several subcategories within this broad category (e.g., pain medicines, cold medicines, cough medicines, antacids, etc.) and many brands within a subcategory (e.g., for pain medicines – Tylenol, Aleve, Advil, etc.)
Objectives
In this individually-written report, you will demonstrate your writing, research abilities, and knowledge of concepts presented in this course. The assignment also gives you the chance to practice using charts and exhibits. As a bonus, the completed report can serve as your writing sample for internships and jobs.
Important First Steps
I will assign each student to a brand for the project. These assignments will be posted on Blackboard. The posting will have some extra brands listed in case you would like to change your assigned brand. All changes will be processed on a first come first served basis.
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No two students can use the same brand.
 
Report Structure and Deliverables
The report has two deliverables. Dates for these deliverables are in the syllabus. You must submit each deliverable on blackboards as well as via email by 5 pm on the due date (or earlier). Late submissions will be penalized by 10% for each day they are late.
Deliverable 1 (Part 1): Market Analysis of Product Category—1000 words
This part should focus on two areas:
(a). Industry Analysis: What is the market situation for the category? Provide a short review of the market situation facing the brands in your competitive “space.” You should examine industry sales at the monetary level for the most recent 3-5 years, forecasts if available, trends within subsectors of your industry and market shares of main players.
(b). Environmental Scan: This section should address topics such as: key consumer trends, crucial political issues, technological changes, legal/regulatory challenges, and/or shifts in the nature of the competitive landscape within your industry. Choose issues that generally affect the performance of all players (i.e., some brands are affected more and some less, but the issues affect the group as a whole).
You will want to refer primarily to the concepts discussed in Ch. 3 and (to a lesser extent) Ch. 5.
Note: All students are strongly encouraged to have their submission reviewed by either the Center for Business Communication (CBC) or by our class TA. Please note who reviewed your report via a footnote displayed on the first page of your submission.