Co-Branding as a Brand Strategy - Assignment Example

?Marketing Concepts. Introduction: Marketing is the pre-sales activity which gives the live to a product so that it can be accepted by the s.It is a phenomenal function which gives the identity to a product. Products are the tangible and intangible physical entities which cater to the needs and wants of the human society. Products are salable only after they blend with the virtue of the marketing activities. This particular paper focuses on the 360 degree marketing activity for a company which manufactures and retail innovative toys for the kids. Brief about the company: Soul Mate is the company which is expertise in manufacturing and innovating toys for the kids. The demographic profile chosen for the products of Soul Mate are boys and girls both aged between two to eighteen. The name itself presents the affection towards the kids. The company is in the market for the last four years. The primary markets are USA and Canada. The lion part of the revenue comes from the US market. The company is one of the most innovative toy making companies in the market. The sell their products through exclusive Soul Mate stores across The USA and also through some selected retail outlets in US and Canada. The company is relatively new in the segment. However, it is privileged with the 15 percent market share in US toy market. The main successful formula of the Soul Mate is the best quality products with best service in the industry. Soul Mate is having a successful journey for the last four years in USA and now it is planning to show its supremacy in the international lucrative markets like India and Brazil. Vision of the Soul Mate: The Vision of the company is to be one of the ethically acclaimed leading innovative toy manufacturing companies in the world. Mission of the Soul Mate: The mission of the Soul Mate is to provide high quality products and services to the prospective customers to gain the trust and distribute the knowledge and happiness among the kids. Soul Mate wants to become the soul mate of the kids for ever so kids can cherish their beautiful childhoods. SWOT analysis: Strength: Soul Mate is full of ambition and lust to achieve. The company is having a name which connects to the heart of the kids. The company is there in the market for more than 4 years. It is having its own retail outlets where they sell their products exclusively. The company is equipped with well trained research team who are monitoring the new trend in the market. And the main strength is the trust it has built among the kids and the real buyers that is the parents. They have the old toy replacement policy with the exchange with new one which works as a big strength of the company. Weakness: Weakness is a factor which is most of the time invisible but it is visible after something goes wrong. However, the main weakness is the product range. It is having a product range which is not too long. The product range is consisting of spy gadgets, board games, dolls and scale models and video games. They don’t focus on the cars and remote controlled toys. Opportunity: Toy market is not saturated and few big names are there in the industry, so the opportunity is there to be grabbed. Soul Mate has a promising future plan to focus on the unexplored lucrative markets like India and Brazil where people are having high spending habits but they don’t get quality products. Opportunities are waving hands toward the Soul Mate, it just has to react over it. Threat: The product life cycle of a toy is not too long. And with the passing of time the formation and psychology about the toys are changing very fast. Extinction is one of the main threats. The company needs to be innovative to survive among the highly competitive business world. However, the interactive website is a big problem solver for the Soul Mate Where Kids can Play Demo Games and may be some free online games which would be licensed under Soul Mate. Product line and the depth and breadth of the line: The product line of the Soul Mate is not too long. The products in the product line are the spy gadgets like spy sunglasses, guns, spy video makers, spy phones spy watches and many more, other products in the products line are scale models of super heroes, dolls, board games, video games, mind games, educational games such as spell check, general knowledge booster etc. and the most important product in the product line is the online games. It is always good to keep the product line short as long product line would dilute the brand image. It should be remembered that Soul Mate is dealing with the innovative toy market and this segment is very small and the product range are also very small. However, the new products should always be in the pipe line to support the downfall of any old toys. Soul Mate maintains the high quality of the toys; they never compromise on the quality. It has been seen in the past that for the low quality parameter twenty five percent of the toys were returned to the warehouse. (Vecchio, 2003). It is better for the toys to remain on shelves for long time but, getting bad remarks from the customer for poor quality is really a bad remark for the company. Differentiating Soul Mate from the closest competitors: Wild Planet is the main competitor for the company. The Wild Planet was launched in 1993. Wild Planet’s toys are gender specific and encourage the boys and girls to explore their world (Ryan et al; 2000). The Wild Planet sells the innovative toys like Soul Mate and some of their products are Spy gadgets, Spy Guns, innovative knowledge box for kinds and many more. They also have their exclusive toy stores like Soul Mate. The main weakness of the Wild Planet is the short product line. And the branding and advertising is not that strong. Soul Mate would apply all the product ideas of Wild Planet to be in the competition. And at the same time it will spend some more money on the advertising and branding so the Brand Soul Mate would come to their mind fist while they go for buying toys. For most of the toy maker it is very vital to think like a kid if they want to understand the demand of the kids. “Think like a kid” (Giacobello, 2001) the new theme for the toy industry nowadays. The target market Target group (TG): Identifying the target group is very much important; it is the most important factor to be known to predict the manufacturing rate. Proper identification of the target group would lower down the cost of manufacturing and the cost of sales and promotion. Soul Mate’s target group is consisting of kids who are aged between two to nineteen. According the demographic profile of the United States it can be seen that the population of the kids aged between zeros to nineteen was almost 80,500,000. In 2000 which was 28.5 percent of the whole population. And it is expected to be 26.3 percent in 2025. (The changing demographic profile of the United States 17). Pricing and distribution strategy: Pricing strategies: ` It is very clear from the market view point that pricing strategies are becoming operational and sales oriented than the strategic and market oriented. (Sodhi, and Sodhi, 2008). Soul mate can have three levels pricing strategy, and they are basically senior level, middle level and customer service level. Sometimes it can be seen that a floor manager or a store manager can reduce the price of a product or rather he or she can give a price discount of five to ten percent that is an example of the operational pricing level. (Sodhi, and Sodhi, 2008). Penetration or Skimming pricing: Penetration pricing is a pricing where the price of a products it reduced in such a manner so it attracts more clients towards it. It is basically to gain the market share (Longenecker et al; 2005) but in case of niche market it is not the way of doing the pricing. Soul Mate is kind of a niche product but not that high in price the skimming pricing would restrict many potential buyers to buy their products. The Soul Mate should follow the variable and dynamic pricing strategy where setting up more than one price to offer price concession in different modules of stores. Soul Mate can set a flexible pricing of the whole product line and in other hand some products which are prices lower than the market rate can help to win more market share. Along with the product line pricing the premium pricing is also very much important as with the help of these kinds of pricing strategy the higher quality products are priced highly. (Pride et al; 2009). Distribution channel and strategy: The distribution channels are the most important factors to be taken care of. The Soul Mate have Two kinds of selling points one is through the super markets in the US and Canada and through the exclusive showrooms across the United States. Proper logistics and supply chain management is very much important for the international distribution. The Soul Mate is having multiple distribution partners in US and Canada. This is to be noted that Soul Mate should look for those distributors who distribute their toys to the retailers who sell only toys. Developing a proper channel of distribution is very much important and for the better implementation the Soul Mate is also equipped with the proper ERP system. For the upcoming global markets like India and Brazil Soul Mate should go for the ad hoc model with exclusive distributors who will distribute their products to some selected stores only to check the customer feedback. Advertising and integrated marketing communication: Soul Mate should implement the proper advertising strategy wisely to restrict the advertising budget and at the same time to reach its target group in a smooth manner. Soul Mate should choose the Banner or hoarding ads as these kinds of ads are geographically restricted. Banners should be put in those places where the target group can see that. This strategy would restrict the dilution of the brand and also this would save more money. TV advertisements are not recommended as the organization is not appealing to the mass and it can dilute the brand. PR (public relations) can create wonders for the products which are focused on the small group of people among the society. Soul Mate products are not for everyone. It is basically for the kids who are living the fast and upper middle class lives Innovation is another tool which can create a new need within the market. And these innovations are possible for the toy makers if they start thinking like kids. Soul Mate should take the initiatives to build one internal team who would be in touch with kids all the time. The weekly play sessions should be done in the Soul Mate Stores to understand the kids mind. Measuring customer satisfaction: Most of the organizations analyze the customer feedback data and use other tools to measure the customer satisfaction. The expectations of the customers are not the same (Cochran. 2003). Soul Mate should have a sound system to document all the customer details. The company should have all the data about the customer it should have the birth date of the customer or the kids of the customer, it should have the anniversary dates and all the feedbacks about the last purchases should be documented properly. Branding and promotion strategies: Brand is an intangible asset of the company. The brand is the name, logo or some marks associated with the product which distinguishes the product from the other identical products. (Clifton, Simmons, and Ahmad, 2009). Co-Branding: Co-branding is a form of branding where two or more brands come together to retain their identity in the competitive market. In this case all the brands are given focus and these campaigns are among the medium to long term strategies. (Begemann, 2008) For an example McDonalds give away Disney toys with the happy meals. Soul Mate should do Co- branding with the Gaming zones in the United States. In this case the top ten kids who will spend the highest time with the highest wins in the gaming zone will get a Soul Mate gift as per his or her choice. With this co-branding the kids will try to be more sharp and interested in winning the games. Multiple branding: Toys are having very small life span. It varies from one to three years. So multiple branding is much better than the brand extension. The innovative toy market can be treated as the hospitality industry for the kids as they give the ultimate luxury to the kids and in this kind of market the multiple branding has become one of the main branding strategies as the risk of single branding failure is low. (Bowie, and Buttle, 2004). Toy industry is very much risky sometimes; one mistake can wipe out the whole product line. The different segment is having different brand names in Soul Mate, for an example the mother brand in Soul Mate but the different product groups have different names. The spy gadgets know as Spy-Mate, which itself is a brand. The board games are known as Soul-Board. Ethical issues related to quality, environment and pricing: Quality issues: The toys can become dangerous sometimes for the toxic materials used in the toys. Nowadays toys are infused with arsenic, lead paints, and other poisonous materials which are silent in nature, but can be a disaster for the kids. So, choosing a healthy toy has become a matter of luck (Rogers. 2009). However, Soul Mate is strictly against the toxic materials. The toys come with the instruction how to use and all the information related to the toys. The best part is the affiliation of Soul Mate with HealthyToys.org (Rogers. 2009). Pricing issues: The Unfair trade practice act plays a vital role to regulate the proper pricing in the market. This act put a lower limit on the prices of the products mainly in wholesale and retail levels. Selling the products bellow the cost is illegal in many places in the United States. (Perreault, 2007). The Robinson-Patman Act (of 1936) is also very important to follow in some parts to restrict the illegal competition. According to this law, selling the same product in the same store in different prices to different buyers is illegal. Future plans: The future plans are the most important factors to be taken very seriously. The toy industry is very fragile in nature, they manufacture thousands of toys every year as the life span of a toy is not too ling. So, considering short life span Soul Mate must have a great future strategy to keep its position properly in the market. The new product development and increasing the product line would be a great initiative. And the toy recycling must be done by the company to retain the abundant toys so they can modify those or they can give it to the child care camps for free so the poor children can also play with them . However, the global expansion would be a great step but, this step should be taken carefully. Conclusion: From the marketing concept one has to remember the quality of the product and the strength of the brand. Building brand and gaining the customer trust in very important. The innovative concept would also help the company as well as the brand to grow high. Positioning and target group is to be judged accordingly to have a sustainable potion in the market. Bibliography Begemann Frederic. (2008). Co-Branding as a Brand Strategy – An Analysis from the Resource-based View. Munich: GRIN Verlag. Bowie David and Buttle David. (2004). Hospitality marketing: an introduction. Massachusetts: Butterworth-Heinemann. Clifton Rita, Simmons John, and Ahmad. (2009). Brands and Branding. New Jersey: Bloomberg Press. Cochran Craig. (2003) Customer satisfaction: tools, techniques, and formulas for success. California: Paton Professiona Giacobello John. (2001). Choosing a Career in the Toy Industry. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. Longenecker Justin Gooderl, Moore Carlos W, Petty J. William and Palich Leslie E. (2005). Small business management: an entrepreneurial emphasis. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Perreault. (2007). Basic Marketing 15E. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. Pride William M, Hughes Robert J, and Kapoor Jack R. (2009). Business. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Rogers W. Sherman. (2009). The African American entrepreneur: then and now. Oxford: ABC- CLIO. Ryan Leo V, Gasparski Wojciech, and Enderle Wojciech. (2000). Business students focus on ethics. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Sodhi ManMohan S and Sodhi Navdeep S. (2008). Six sigma pricing: improving pricing operations to increase profits. New Jersey: FT Press Vecchio Gene Del. (2003) The blockbuster toy!: how to invent the next big thing. Los Angeles: Pelican Publishing. Shreshtha Laura B. “The changing demographic profile of the United States.”. Available at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32701.pdf . (Accessed on 07/12/12). Read More