All posts tagged Promotion

Reckitt Benckiser – Market Penetration

Reckitt Benckiser (RB) is one of the U.K.’s largest fast-moving consumer goods manufacturer; they are responsible for hundreds of well-known brands such as Dettol, Strepsils and Cilit Bang. This post, however, will be focusing on just one of their many brands: Clearasil. RB has just launched a new promotional campaign to boost awareness and sales of their spot removal and skin care brand. With any Clearasil purchase, customers can visit their website and enter in their receipt details for the chance to win Apple vouchers.

This is a great example of a market penetration strategy; whereby marketing efforts are focused on increasing sales of existing products to their current customers. And I actually think this simple marketing push – they have only had to adjust ‘Promotion’ element of their marketing mix – is really effective. There are essentially two reasons why I like this campaign enough to write-up about it:

Firstly, they aim to encourage teenagers – the target market – to try using Clearasil products. But the offer also appeal to existing customers, who have already tried the product and are regular users, as well. Market penetration works by increasing consumption of a product. Hence, it would not be a surprise if regular users take the opportunity to stock up product for a chance to enter the competition – maybe even more than once. This is effective, yet simple marketing: the customer is happy to win vouchers and the company receives more sales. Therefore, a profitable relationship has been established.

Secondly, they have segmented and targeted their consumers; and this is clearly seen in their strategy. I like the idea of giving away Apple vouchers every four hours. According to the managing director of the agency who created RB’s promotional campaign, this emphasises the rapid four-hour improvement Clearasil provides. Moreover, the moving banner at the bottom of the page highlights recent winners. These two ideas give a real sense of having a chance to win; rather than having just one, high-value prize that many competitions offer. Evidently, they really understand exactly what it is that their consumers want. This is why I believe market segmentation and targeting to be essential to any strategy – regardless of how complicated or simple it may be.

Ultimately, I the point I am trying to make with my post is this: marketing strategies do not have to be fancy or complicated to be effective. What is needed for a strategy to work is to clearly understand your consumer and then, hopefully, all that is needed are subtle changes to the marketing mix. RB have built some of the U.K.’s most recognisable brands – they clearly know what they are doing… and it is not rocket science!

Do you personally feel inclined to try Clearasil because of the competition? Or if you are a regular user would you use this as a chance to stock-up? Please leave a comment below.

1 Comment

by Josh on August 5, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in FMCG

Tagged Apple, Beckinser, Clearasil, Market, Marketing, Mix, Penetration, Promotion, Reckitt, Strategy

Posted by Josh on August 5, 2011

https://manifestedmarketing.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/reckitt-benckiser-market-penetration/

Budweiser – Market Penetration

In the fiercely competitive alcoholic drinks market, almost every brewer is on the look out for any opportunity to increase their sales – they are resorting to limited moves to such market penetration strategies, targeting existing markets and consumers. Diageo, the distributor of Budweiser in Ireland, wishes to capitalise on the early summer in order to win market share. The company has just launched an app for smartphones that measures the temperature across Ireland. If the temperature in a given location exceeds 20°C, consumers in that area will receive a free drink from any 2,500 participating pubs. See this video for a full description of how the service works.

Normally, various forms of price promotions – and any short-term adjustments to the marketing mix – are over-looked as trivial and insignificant. This latest campaign, however, has more depth that your ordinary marketing stunt for several reasons.

Firstly, it is great to see a company that realises simply using web 2.0 or social media technology is no longer innovative: it is what you do with new technology that defines creative digital marketing. Just about all of Budweiser’s competitors use the latest tech developments to enhance their marketing – I have previously written about Barcadi’s pit-falls here. But this is a truly original idea. And when something is new people want to share it with others; the whole benefit behind market penetration is to stimulate the market, which is best done through word-of-mouth. Hence, consumers, and their friends who may have hitherto not tried the drink, will be closely watching the ‘Ice Cold Index’.

As soon as those temperatures rise enough, you can be sure everyone will be using all forms of instant and web messaging to spread the word. This leads us to my second point: this simple move is effective enough to take advantage of external opportunities and mitigate any threats. Any good marketing decision should involve a SWOT analysis – this is no exception. The opportunity may be trivial – like the good weather – but the threats posed was much more serious. Budweiser risks loosing significant market share over the summer, particularly in Ireland, where the warm weather is traditionally greeted with a cold glass of Cider or Pimm’s. Therefore, Budweiser is effectively directly competing with these summer time market leaders with what is known as a market challenger strategy.

And what is the best way to compete? Turn your weaknesses into strengths – this is the other benefit of doing a SWOT analysis and the third and final reason why Diageo’s strategy is more clever than your average promotion. The Budweiser brand has been repositioned for the summer – away from its irrelevant American heritage to be more lifestyle and ‘feel-good’ focused. Consumers see brands as an extension of themselves, and the summer this what they aspire to be.

Of course, however, it is hard to say whether or not this will have any long-term effect. Yes, they can encourage people to try Budweiser, but can Irish drinkers really be torn away from their favourite drinks for good? Thus, there is a degree of risk with even the simplest of marketing penetration strategies. Now that I think about risk, surely the biggest risk – and the most likely to happen – is simply the weather turns bad and no one even gets to try a free Budweiser…

1 Comment

by Josh on May 2, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in Food and Drink

Tagged Bacardi, Budweiser, Cold, Diageo, Ice, Index, Market, Promotion

Posted by Josh on May 2, 2011

https://manifestedmarketing.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/budweiser-market-penetration/

Monopoly Revolution – Product Development Life-Cycle

Monopoly is probably the most famous board game in the world, and the Guinness Book of World Records acknowledges the board game as the most played, too. Patented in 1933, Monopoly is well-into the maturity stage of a product’s life-cycle, which is: research and development, market introduction, growth, maturity and finally decline. The typical maturity stage of any given product features sales levels that are consistent and flat; Monopoly has grown so popular in its existing market and so large globally that there is little scope for market development, by finding new markets, or even market penetration strategies, which would aim to boost repeat purchases. Although Monopoly makes a suitable cash-cow in a product portfolio, sales will inevitably decline until the product is no longer financially viable and discontinued after becoming a dead-dog. Despite this, how can Hasbro – the firm behind the board game – delay this decline and benefit from mature sales revenue for as long as possible? The answer is Monopoly Revolution…

The circular version of the board game – which features credit cards, inflated prices, and music from The Beatles – is what is known as an extension strategy. Monopoly Revolution, in theory, should re-engage consumers’ interests in the product and thereby provide a short-term boost to sales to offset the inevitable progression to the decline stage (see below).

Evidently, the extension strategy in the short-term increases sales revenue, and in the long-term delays the product reaching decline. However, it is not necessarily the product that will make the extension strategy work – ‘product’, after all, is only one element of the marketing mix. Hence, for marketing to be most-effective, each element on the marketing mix needs to inter-relate to one another; Monopoly Revolution needs effective promotion of the new product to be a success. And this is something their marketing department seems to realise.

To promote Monopoly Revolution, which is being sold as a celebration of 75 years of Monopoly, the ‘Go’ location – the starting square for players of the game – was located at the South Bank in London, next to the London Eye, which is half-way between Old Kent Road and Mayfair. Moreover, the first 75 visitors to the celebration at the aforementioned location were able to claim £200 ‘for passing go’, while throughout the day everyone had early access to play the updated version of the board game. This is truly innovative and effective. It appeals to those who are already obsessed about Monopoly, those who will nag you to play with them when they purchase Monopoly Revolution; by appealing to such an exclusive audience, those subjected to the marketing feel the need to tell somebody. This in turn unleashes the most influential form of promotion: word-of-mouth.

Hence, particularly given the product’s launch in the Autumn in time for Christmas, I believe the extension strategy will live-out Hasbros’ marketing aim of extending the maturity stage. But, not because of the product – I, personally, think it’s pointless and a cheap gimmick – but because of the promotion. I’d like to finish with something I think is important to remember: just because it’s the product that is being updated, does not mean you can ignore ‘promotion’, ‘packaging’, ‘place’ – the other elements of the marketing mix that combined are even more crucial to a successful marketing strategy.

Barclays – Sponsorship

Barclays, the british bank, has been a long-term and well-known sponsor of the football Premier League. More recently, however, Barclays has become the sponsor of the city of London’s new cycle hire scheme and cycling ‘superhighways’ that aim to ease congestion, look after the environment and promote healthy living. The program will involve cyclists renting one of the 6,000 Barclays branded bicycles from any of the city’s 400 docking stations, which are connected together by blue-coloured cycle lanes. All for the cost of £1 – providing their commute is over within 30 minutes. Although there is a degree of goodwill in the sponsorship, there is a marketing advantage to gain; financial services are becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate as their complexity increases and banks’ reputations are in tatters.

The main reason behind sponsorship is to align a brand with typical values or an ethos; their lion logo, for instance, connotes British heritage and tradition – qualities that evoke trust from customers that, combined with an effective promotional mix, can be seen as customer relationship marketing. But in this case, the quirky sponsorship deal shows creativity, which is what really produces brand awareness. Brand awareness, for Barclays in particular, is critical to success given that they sell an intangible service. Therefore, to gain recognition and loyalty, their brand needs to be symbolised and synonymous with familiar, visible objects. Moreover, this can be seen in the blue cycle lanes – Londoners will forever be reminded of Barclays’ omnipresent dominance in the world’s banking capital. It will be those continuous, albeit small, prompts in commuters’ minds that creates brand awareness.

However, as a form of below the line promotion – within a wide-ranging promotional mix that is needed in a competitive market – sponsorship often produces returns that are hard to quantify: how do you measure the benefits of moving, untargeted advertisements and the correlation between this and brand awareness? This problem only compounds when trying to figure out if the sponsorship is recognised as goodwill for the sake of good, or goodwill for the sake of marketing. Despite the cycle lanes being painted blue before the sponsorship, many Londoners see the branding as intrusive and excessive – this deal, perhaps, affects too many stakeholders, who’s collective needs are very rarely satisfied. Further, there are issues with the name ‘Barclays’ cycle hire’: its boring and uninspiring. What happened to the innovation that hitherto had been the backbone behind the strategy?

Overall, when assessing whether this will be an effective marketing strategy, the results depend very much on the success of the sponsored entity; sponsorship, much like celebrity endorsements, can be double-edged swords. As banking is not seen as an ethical industry, the goodwill from enviromental and health benefits is likely to be limited. Also, upon hearing reports of bikes being too slow and the logistics of the scheme complicated, there is plenty of scope for error: the Barclays brand may become identified by bicycle collisions, theft and road-rage.

Manifested Marketing - Marketing Blog

All posts tagged Promotion

Reckitt Benckiser – Market Penetration

Budweiser – Market Penetration

Monopoly Revolution – Product Development Life-Cycle

Barclays – Sponsorship

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