Launching a New Perfume Brand - Invigo Arturo - Report Example

Launching a new perfume brand: Invigo Arturo BY YOU YOUR ACADEMIC ORGANISATION HERE HERE HERE Launching a new perfume brand: Invigo Arturo Product Brief A new perfume brand, Invigo Arturo, will be launched in the UK in January 2010. This new brand will be positioned between many high-cost competitors in the luxury marketplace and set at a price which is competitive for elite fragrances. Invigo Arturo will combine the essence of cinnamon with a musky, earthy smell which the brand believes will be attractive to its target markets. “Putting consumers into the spending mood involves filling the air with a seductive scent” (Caplan, 2006, p.66). This new brand will be operating in a highly-saturated marketplace in the UK with a high volume of upscale and high priced competitors. The competitive landscape In the UK and broader European marketplace, there are a substantial amount of competitors, creating difficulties in achieving brand loyalty and differentiating the product in a way that makes it outperform other fragrances. “Consumers show less brand loyalty to fragrances than other cosmetics” (Min, 2004, p.44). When the marketplace is saturated with different competitors and consumers often defect from one brand to another, attempts at gaining loyalty would require concentrated promotion as part of an integrated marketing communications campaign. Two main competitors, Prada brand and Christian Lacroix brand, are both high-cost perfumes in the UK and will be two main forces which can take market share away from this new brand: Invigo Arturo. Prada’s main communication strategy involves its reliance on past successes with its brand in product placement in a highly-successful American import movie entitled The Devil Wears Prada. At the online company Amazon, “their Devil Wears Prada-themed shop has sold out” (Friedman, 2006, p.6). This particular film and its product placement efforts brought much higher brand exposure to international audiences, thereby boosting sales of its perfume line. Unlike many other of Prada’s perfume competitors, they do not have to rely on excessive promotional communications since the brand is receiving a high consumer following in the luxury target markets. Prada does not cater to niche markets, but essentially uses mass marketing concepts to reach their desired demographic: The affluent, female luxury goods consumer. In relation to perfume advertising, “A lot of what is seen in our culture is based on sex” (Newman, 2006, p.50). Prada, in its print advertisements, uses light sexuality when attempting to position its product among competitors. (See Appendix 1 for an illustration of Prada Perfume advertising). Prada appeals to the consumer, rather than the product, when positioning to show their brand as an experience related to the culture of the buyer. Unlike many high-cost competitors who focus on the product in packaging or some other dimension, Prada seeks a lifestyle positioning strategy for its mass market audiences with the socio-economic resources to purchase high-cost scents. Prada also uses innovative marketing on their company website to promote their perfume brand. A flash player format shows a very retro-style of advertising, similar to that of silent films from the 1920s, redone in a way that has modernism and class (prada.com, 2008). Other than the company product website, Prada does not maintain a large web promotional presence. Christian Lacroix brand, however, seems to have also been reliant on their brand’s previous success stories through product placement when being spotlighted on the television programme Absolutely Fabulous. However, the exposure of Lacroix’s brands through this medium was only a short-term trend where Lacroix branded products received an explosion of interest and then a sudden and ongoing decline which ultimately led to a recent bankruptcy filing. Lacroix does not seem to have an integrated marketing communications focus, but utilises minimal advertising to expose the perfume brand, likely believing the historical successes from Absolutely Fabulous would drive the consumer interest. Lacroix adopted less of a mass marketing strategy and is attempting to target the younger consumer by linking the perfume brand with beauty and imagination at the consumer level. This high-cost perfume essentially segments a mass market of luxury goods buyers at the lifestyle level, such as the thrill-seeker personality type or the striver type who searches for exclusive products with affluence. Because of the high volume of competition and the high costs of having a concentrated promotional mix in this marketplace, Lacroix simply segments a mass market into several smaller niche markets, however all with the necessary financial resources to purchase Lacroix brand perfumes. Lacroix positions the product in terms of the product, attempting to show how it can be strongly connected with consumer wants and needs. (See Appendix 1 for a Christian Lacroix advertisement). The catch phrase undefined is used to express consumer lifestyle and product connection. Unlike Prada which positions in terms of the consumer, Lacroix focuses on product design attributes and colors to express concepts of consumer imagination. Marketing communications plan Objective for Invigo Arturo: Produce brand awareness and brand recall in the UK marketplace by the end of 2010. These are the foundations of early launch of a new branded product. Through this integrated communications effort brand loyalty is hoped to be achieved by 2011 in the desired target markets. Strategy: Sales of women’s perfumes in the UK grew nine percent between 1998 and 2002 (Brand Strategy, 2003). These numbers remain relatively constant today, showing that new domestic and international markets are contributing to higher sales fragrances. Advertising Advertising will consist of ad placement in various lifestyle magazines in the UK which appeal to Invigo Arturo’s target markets. These ads will be developed to illustrate innovation in bottle design and packaging as part of the print promotions, linking these with consumer lifestyle values. Advertising will be developed and launched once monthly, with new visuals and concepts, to give the brand a fresh and flexible appeal. The magazines chosen will be selected by conducting primary research in the form of the focus group. This will give real-life and current feelings about magazine reading, lifestyle and fragrance selection in relation to consumer behaviour. The focus group, if conducted right before launch, will help to identify the best circulation magazine for brand-building. PR Invigo Arturo will seek out marketing partnerships with companies such as Avon, a global cosmetic company, to promote ongoing efforts to invigorate the new perfume. Avon has collaborated with Christian Lacroix in areas of research and development and marketing (Aidin, 2009). However, using appropriate press releases and various radio spots, the brand name Invigo Arturo will be repeated to bring higher recall to consumer groups and also to spotlight the brand’s corporate social responsibility at the consumer level. No other competitor uses this type of consumer-focused PR advertisement, however it is vital to the success of meeting the plan’s objectives for brand recall in one year. This will be ongoing throughout the entire communications campaign. It is important to use inexpensive public relations material to show the many benefits of Invigo Arturo and also the internal efforts of the brand to be more socially responsible. Any ingredients used in the ongoing development of the fragrance brand which are organic or healthy for the environment can be leaked in public relations print materials to show the environmental concerns. This would again give more brand exposure to the perfume label and bring higher profit. Sales promotion Celebrities will be included in the marketing campaign and will be included in print advertising. Celebrities such as Kate Moss, Mariah Carey, and David Beckham have provided considerably to the sales successes of many competing scents in the fragrance marketplace (Bokaie, 2007). Celebrities will be chosen to endorse Invigo Arturo based on their likely ability to connect with the target consumer groups, both mass market and niche. In trade show environments, when available to coordinate, celebrities will be on-site to offer testimonials of the product or offer sales advice to interested fans and consumer groups. This will be ongoing throughout the entire communications campaign. Consumers often judge their decision-making on celebrity involvement and Invigo Arturo believes that the rather costly use of celebrities is justified by the amount of social appeal it can connect with a product. This product’s objectives in the communications plan is to develop a strong customer recall and awareness, therefore celebrity endorsement can bring rapid connection to the new fragrance brand. Direct marketing Direct marketing will consist of a simple two page product catalogue, full-colour, which will be sent to consumers in higher-income demographic environments across the UK. This type of marketing will offer discount incentives when buying two bottles of the perfume, at a rate of discount at 20 percent. This incentive will be included to invite the consumer to test the brand (as it will include a peel-back scent label) and to visit the store for the sizeable promotional discount. This will be ongoing throughout the campaign and will last the entire 12 months toward the goal of reaching consumer brand recall in the target markets. Personal selling Several personal sales consultants and experts will be dispatched to visit the chosen retailers who will carry Invigo Arturo to train employees how to best promote the brand to consumers. This sales consultant will also have the expertise and knowledge of the objectives of this new brand and can motivate excitement in the perfume sales arena. These consultants will be trained with the brand’s philosophy and lifestyle positioning, thereby continuing to send the same consistent message to consumers about the benefits of buying Invigo Arturo. Web-based material Invigo Arturo does not believe that the web will be necessary for sales success. Even though consumer use of the Internet continues to grow annually, research did not uncover evidence that web-based promotion can lead to higher consumer interest. The costs for outsourcing information technology support and monitoring online content would be a financial and labour burden for the brand. Timeline “The launch of a new scent often costs tens of millions of dollars, sometimes even more” (Burr, 2005, p.2). However, Invigo Arturo hopes to shed a considerable amount of these costs by being more effective in sending a consistent message and using personal selling and other lower-cost advertising to drive a successful brand. All aspects of this communications campaign will be ongoing throughout the duration of the 12 month plan, requiring ongoing development of advertising and direct mail as well as timely production of print advertising and celebrity recruitment and contracting. References Aidin, B. 2009. Avon calling the shots; Direct sales companies are enjoying unprecedented success in the recession, Financial Times, London. 4 July, p.7 Bokaie, J. 2007. The celebrity smell sell, Marketing, London. 19 Sept, p.16. Brand Strategy. 2003. The scent of a woman. October 2003, p.35. Burr, C. 2005. The scent of the Nile: Jean-Claude Ellena creates a new perfume. Viewed 19 Nov 2009 at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/fst/faculty/acree/fs430/notes_acree/pdf/scentofthenile.pdf Caplan, J. 2006. Scents and Sensibility, Time Magazine, 168(16), p.66. Flickr.com. 2009. Perfume Ads. Viewed 17 Nov 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/27143556@N05/3530547535/ Friedman, V. 2006. Devil and the deep blue suit from Prada to Boateng. Financial Times, London. 1 July, p.6. Min, K.J. 2004. Sweet smell of success, Far Eastern Economic Review, 167(11), pp.44-46. Newman, K.A. 2006. Launch sequence, Global Cosmetic Industry, 174(4), pp.50-53. Prada.com. 2008. Infusions. Viewed 18 Nov 2009 from http://www.prada.com/fragrances. Appendix 1: Advertisement for Christian Lacroix and Prada Perfumes Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27143556@N05/3530547535/ “Perfume Ads”. http://popsop.ru/wp-content/uploads/christian_lacroix_new.jpg Read More