Wednesday, March 16, 2011

What Channels are you going to do to get your product noticed?

There are many channels that companies take to get there products noticed. They may take surveys from the individuals they are going to sell the product too, may have taste tests or have individuals wear or try there item for a trial period. Either way a company chooses they must research the individual that they are going to sell their product too.  I’m going to do the same thing. I plan on talking to men to see what it is that would make them buy facial wash. I also plan on using a few gimmicks to make my product appeal to men. One of my main gimmicks is going to be sex. I think that sex sells if it is used tastefully. I’m going to show a man that by using facial wash that more women will be attracted to them than ever before.  I’m also thinking about using some manly gimmicks to get them to buy facial wash. A thought I had was that if you buy a facial wash you can get coupons for beer or to some sort of manly event like sports or a tool show. I haven’t quite ironed out that idea as of yet but it is definitely a work in progress. That is one of the ideas that I’m going to bring up in my research with men about my facial wash. I feel that if I can convince at least one man that facial wash is the new wave that he will spread it to his friend, who will then spread it to his friend, who will then spread it to his friend. I think you get the idea. I’m want to correlate the use of facial wash to something a man does in his everyday life. I think that by doing this, men will want to buy facial wash every time they shop.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Three Great Mission Statements

Three of my classmates Mission Statements that really stood out were Holly Burke’s, Elizabeth Manning’s and Chris McLaughlin’s. I believe that they stood out the most because they are trying to reach out to a new brand of customer. They follow the quote   “A brand, product, or service is more than just a physical thing. Humans that connect with the brand add meaning and value to it” (Armstrong & Kotler (2011). Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing) According to Holly Burke, the mission is to introduce Fabreeze to a new section of customers. This will take this trusted product to almost universal acceptance as THE must have household necessity. Fabreeze is on the cutting edge of innovation in its category. Men will impressed by the many benefits they find in our products. The new sales will propel our company into place prominence in the coming decade and our market share will increase 46% by the next financial year. Our brand is projected to acquire a new cache, and with it even better opportunities to reach out to other brands who want to partner with Proctor and Gamble. She is trying to connect this product to men so that they can expand sales and their customer base. According to, Elizabeth Manning and her mission statement for Burt’s Beeswax, Why does this company exist? Women say they want that man with those long lasting, kissable lips. Is there something that can give that to men, without them feeling like a girl, for going to buy the product? There is, it is Burt’s Beeswax. “The lips that will leave someone breathless.” This all-natural, soothing chap stick is not a normal product; it is meant to bring the real men up to the challenge. Have those lips that are soft and give that breathe a little extra goodness. Men have the crackled lips and can be embarrassed to kiss the girl with them, or maybe be denied of a kiss, because of those prickly lips. Well that is not an issue, the Burt’s are a chap stick men can take and wear with pride and not feel girly. She is also following the theory that the Burt’s Beeswax can be connected to men. According to Chris McLaughlin and the mission statement for his kitchen tools, the point of my Kitchen Tools product will be to get men into the kitchen to enjoy cooking with their tools. This will be done with utensils that they will have fun using. These will simulate real garage type tools but will be solely meant for kitchen use due to being actual utensils. Not only will men have fun using these products to cook with, but they will be impressing the ladies with the ability to handle the tools so well. This will be due to the fact that their already familiar with them from such places as the garage or construction work. We here at Kitchen Tools Inc. find it very important that men know how to cook well, and with the amount of research put into our product we have found one of the downfalls has been utensil design. We’re not guaranteeing you will cook better, because we can’t promise those sort of things, but if you buy our wonderful product you will learn proper technique and you will go on from there to learn how to cook impressively. His mission statement is trying to connect men with kitchen utensils by turning them into tools. Men will associate better to cooking if they are using utensil that is shaped as a manly tool that they are familiar with. All these statements allow men to connect with the brand and add value to the product.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Disasterous New Products


New product development focuses on finding new ways to solve customer problems and create more customer-satisfying experiences. If this is the case then do all new products that hit the market place actually solve a problem or do they sometimes make problems worse? What if they were to come out with clothes that were made out of meat? Most of us already know that Lady Gaga pulled this off at an award show but was it really a pleasing experience for her? Think about if you had to wear meat all day long the things that would happen? 1. You would smell all day long. 2. You would probably get chased by dogs and possibly attacked. 3. You would probably be surrounded by bugs all day long. I think we have established that clothes made of meat aren’t a solution rather a problem. A second product would be garlic scented cologne or perfume. I don’t think this would work. The idea of perfume and cologne is for us to smell good and to attract us to other individuals. You may argue that the garlic flavoring might attract a man to a woman because she might smell like a pizza.  Although that may be true for some men, I doubt all men like the smell of garlic. Isn’t garlic meant for us to ward off vampires anyway? The last product I don’t think would work would be non disposable toilet paper. I know you are thinking “man” this would be a great idea to help the environment. You may be right in this aspect but think of all the problems it would create. 1. Where would you wash it? 2.  It is really possible that another unit would need to be built so it could be individually washed and would increase cost. The last thing about this product is how would we handle the scent? Sometimes developing new products isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

Implementation Evaluation Control

The last thing we will have to focus on is implementation, evaluation and control.Through implementation we are going to put our marketing analysis into action. We are going to implement our plan by providing the best value to our customers while maintaining an excellent customer service policy. We are going to bring an excellent management team to focus on watching over and maintaining our objectives. To maintain control we will need to adapt to changes that are happening in the marketing world. Many managers think that "doing things right" (implementation) is as important as, or even more than, "doing the right thing" (strategy). (Armstrong and Kotler (2011) Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 57) Implementing our plan will be the key to our success. We will have to keep close evaluations on our sales force. We will evaluate them on their ability to "plan their work and work their plan". (Armstrong & Kotler (2011) Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 426) By implementing, evaluating and controlling our plan we will be successful in selling our face wash to a new type of buyer. In our case it will be men.

Marketing Mix

The marketing mix consists of product, price, promotion and distribution. The product we will be selling is face wash. The price point we will need to follow is going to be competitive. We are going to promote it by selling sex and distribute it where we can catch the eye of men. Because of the economy, "consumers are talking about reassessing their favorite brands... if they think they can get a better value with the same price, " says a marketing consultant. (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 221). We will promote through the web "A 30 second ad is a story we pull together for consumers on TV. Digital is an extension of that storytelling in a typically longer format"(Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, page 377) We want our brand to stick out from the rest. “Nike’s latest masterstroke is social networking, online and off” (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, page 43) In order for us to maintain a competitive edge we will need to get online socially.  We are going to have to prove to our customer that the value of our product is worth the price. We want to be able to say the same thing that a Trader Joe's captains says "People get hooked on something and they keep coming back for it. That's how it starts". (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, page 274). That will be the key to our facial wash to get men hooked onto washing their faces with our brand of face wash. We will need to take a similar approach to buying as Trader Joe's does, "We buy in huge quantities straight from our distributors, which cuts out the middle man and lets us offer the lowest possible prices" (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 274). Our approach will be to find the cheapest ingredients to make our product as well as the cheapest way to distribute them. I feel to get our product started we can set a buy one get one free offer to men only. This may even encourage men to buy our face wash for their wives at the same time. I think our price point will be competitive at $4.99 for an 8oz bottle. We can blow competition such as Proactive away if we effectively show our customer that by washing your face on a daily basis with Clean & Clear face wash that they will never have a dirty face.

Target Market Strategy

All companies should have a marketing strategy and the marketing strategy should include a target market strategy. Our facial wash will be targeting men ages 18-45. Our marketing strategy will be achieved by creating value for our target customers. We will do this by using the concept of segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning. We will use segmentation to divide the total market into smaller segments. We will use targeting to select the segment or segments to enter. We will use differentiation to differentiate the market offering to create superior customer value. We will use positioning to position the market offering in the minds of target customers. We will evaluate the needs and behaviors our clients value. We will make our product attractive to men. We will differentiate our customer service from the service of our competitors and we will locate our product strategically. We will start  local by listening to analysts that say "By all means go global, but the first thing you have to do is win on the ground. You have to go local". (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 495). We will also listen to another analyst that says "You need to respect local culture and become a part of it". (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 495) A global brand must "engage with consumers in a way that feels local to them". (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 495). According to this advice we will go local before we even think about going global.  Our strategy to target men is using sex to show that face wash is appealing. I think that we can try to position some facial wash as a cross sell at automotive stores right next to the hand wash. A lot of mechanics faces get dirty when they're working on cars and I feel that if marketed with the right signage this could be effective. I have attached an idea of what this may look like.
 

Targeting is not only about who we are serving but how we will serve them. the Ritz Carlton shares the idea of “The Ritz-Carlton Experience”—one that “enlivens the senses, instills a sense of well-being, and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.” (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 193) It is going to be our job to provide a similar idea in that we want our customer to have the sense that if they use our product they will have a clean fresh face. Targeting also has to do with how a product is positioned. We want to place our product in our customers minds relative to our competing products. “Products are created in the factory, but brands are created in the mind,” (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 193) We are going to place our product in our male customers minds by using the slogan "Because she won't kiss anything that isn't Clean & Clear. This slogan will give our target customer something catchy that will be embedded in their minds.




SWOT Analysis

Our company will need to complete a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis analyzes a companies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths are internal capabilities that may help a company reach its objectives. Weaknesses are internal limitations that may interfere with a company's ability to achieve its objectives. Opportunities are external factors that the company may be able to exploit to its advantage. Threats are current and emerging external factors that may challenge the company's performance. Some of our companies strengths will be that everyone needs to wash there face. Some of our companies weaknesses will be the challenge of getting a man to purchase the product on their own as opposed to a woman purchasing it for them. Our opportunities are that by gearing the sale of this product towards men we will be increasing our consumers buying power. We will now be catering to more than one type of individual. One of our threats will be our competition but I think our biggest threat will be ourselves. We are going to have to plan correctly in order for us to sell our product effectively. I think that internally we will need to focus our goal of having excellent customer service. To obtain this goal we will need to build a great repoire between ownership, mangers an employees. I think we should follow a customer service model as the model followed by Lexus “treat each customer as we would a guest in our own home” and “go to any lengths to serve them better.” (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 218)  We should not only go to any lengths to serve our customers but our employees as well. I think we should follow a service plan like the one followed by HP. It promises “HP Total Care—expert help for every stage of your computer’s life. From choosing it, to configuring it, to protecting it, to tuning it up—all the way to recycling it.” (Armstrong & Kotler (2011)Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. Prentice Hall Publishing, pg 219) I think we should provide our client with a service that allows them to learn proper facial care techniques and also allows them to provide feedback for what they want from Clean and Clear facial wash.