Promotional Aspects of Rolex Company - Research Paper Example

? Promotional Aspects of Rolex Company al Affiliation Promotional Aspects of Rolex Company Kazmi and ? Batra (2009) that most companies operate in a very competitive environment today. Therefore, one of the best ways to stay ahead of the park is to adopt an effective marketing strategy that takes into consideration all the marketing mix of a product or service. Adopting an effective marketing mix ensures the satisfaction of customer’s needs thus success. However, knowing the needs of customers and meeting them is normally very challenging undertaking. Therefore, before launching a product in the market, a company must take into consideration all the marketing mix, including product, price, place, and promotion. The careful evaluation of all the elements of the marketing mix ensures the development of a product that meets the needs of customers in a market. Even though there may be countless of organizations that have excelled in marketing services and products, Rolex watch company stands out as the greatest marketing genius of the 21st century. Founded in 1905, Rolex has grown to become one of the world’s most valuable brands. The company ranked as Forbes’ 68th most valuable brands in 2013 (Beckwith, 2011). Rolex specializes in the manufacture of wristwatches in the world. Most of the best watches in stores today are manufactured by the company. Rolex was the first company to manufacture a waterproof watch in 1926. The company’s watches are not just appealing in terms of appearance, but also in terms of quality. Rolex watches are worn by some of the world’s most famous athletes, including Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Phil Mickelson and Lindsey Vonn, just to name but a few. The success of Rolex is mainly attributable to the promotional strategies that the company adopts. The company has adopted an aggressive promotional campaign that encompasses advertising, sales promotion, public relations and individual sales. The promotional strategies that the Rolex have adopted over the past years has ensured that its product become a household brand. In creating brand awareness for its watches, Rolex have adopted some of the best promotional strategies ever witnessed. Advertising Rolex advertising campaign is just exceptional. The most striking feature about Rolex is that it has narrowed its marketing campaign messages, which are consistently relayed across all mediums. In fact, Rolex has stayed away from the use of the mainstream advertising mediums, such as radio and television ads that are not targeted at a precise audience (Stevenson, 2011). At the same time, Rolex has stayed away from using broad strokes of ads that are occasionally used by large promotions such as the purchasing time commonly used during big sporting events. Instead, Rolex has largely focused on major events that attract special consumers with the ability to buy its expensive watches whose prices range from $5,000 to $100,000 (Beckwith, 2011). For instance, the Rolex Sports car Series and the Rolex 24 Hours held in Dayton attracted both race fans and sport car owners with the ability to spend large sums of money participating in the event. This also offered Rolex a perfect opportunity to advertise its quality and expensive watches. Rolex also advertises it watches during golf tournaments, as well as during yachting events that normally attract wealthy audiences with the ability to buy its expensive watches (Stevenson, 2011). Apart from sponsoring sports series that attract wealthy audiences with the ability to purchase expensive items like its watches, Rolex also, sponsor individual sport personalities to help promote its watches. Currently, Rolex has signed great deals with famous golf giants such as Tiger Woods, Gary Player, Arnold Plamer, and Jack Nicklaus. Rolex has also signed great deals with famous tennis players, such as Roger Federer as a means of promoting its expensive watches. A closer look at the past commercial ads that Rolex had run in the past, it is clear that the company has a consistent message to its audience. Rolex’s commercial ads convey wealth and prestige by showing images of big yachts and racecars competing against each other (Freeman, 2001). In its entire commercial, Rolex has been trying to portray to its target consumers that they are wealthy, active, handsome, and beautiful and lives the best lives that anyone would admire on earth. In this regard, Rolex is trying to portray the image that its customers buy Rolex watches as a reward and statement of success in their lives. This commercial a Strategy has certainly enabled Rolex to associate with the wealthy and big spenders resulting in increased sales and huge profits. For instance, Rolex posted about 4.5 billion sales revenue in the year 2012. This was a significant increase in sales compared to the previous year’s performance. The success has mainly been attributed to the effective marketing campaign that the company has adopted over the years. Kazmi and ? Batra (2009) argues that technology has become a powerful promotional tool in the world today. With the emergence of internet services, companies are increasingly turning to the internet for promotional purposes. Rolex is one such company that understands the power of the internet as a promotional tool. Rolex has created a website where customers can view its products via the internet without necessarily having to travel to its stores (Beckwith, 2011). Every time the company comes up with a new brand, it is placed on the company’s website where interested consumers can view the product. This has enabled the company to reach out to a large number of potential consumers, including those based in foreign countries. Rolex also understands the power of social media as a tool for promoting products. In fact, many companies today use the social media platform such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for promoting products and services (Freeman, 2001). Rolex is among the companies that use the social media to promote its product. The company reveals that it has been able to attract many new Facebook fans and twitter followers to its products. This has helped the company register an increase in sales revenue. Sales Promotion As earlier stated, the business environment has becomes extremely competitive. As such, the best way to maintain competitive edge over other companies, according to Kazmi and ? Batra (2009), is to undertake an effective sales promotion that is appealing to potential customers. The aim of sales promotion is to attract many customers to boost sale of the product or services offered by a company. Different companies use different promotional techniques to attract customers to the company. Rolex is one of the companies that understand the power of sales promotion in attracting customers to buy its products. For instance, Rolex has been using loyalty cards as one way of promoting its products to its customers (Stevenson, 2011). The company reveals that it has been using this sales promotion technique to encourage its customers to come back to the retail shops by awarding the discounts based on the amount spent on the previous visits. Loyalty cards also help in promoting Rolex also use the loyalty cards as a marketing research tool. This is because the card helps the company understand its customers shopping habits, including where and when they shop and such information is helpful to Rolex in developing new or existing product. Rolex watches are normally very expensive compared to watches manufactured by other companies. This makes one wonders about how Rolex manages to sale its expensive watches when there are other cheap ones that customer can buy. However, the company has been able to register high sales due to its effective promotional strategy. Rolex reveals that, any time it intends to launch a new watch in the market, it normally offer them at a discount to customers (Beckwith, 2011). The aim of selling them at relatively cheaper prices than normal is to attract customers to buy the new brands of watches. This sales promotion is continued for a while until the customers become familiar with the product. This method of promotion has enabled Rolex to beat its rivals in the market in terms of sales and profitability. Rolex also offer free samples of some of its watches as a means of promoting its products. However, this type of sale promotion is only available to its ambassadors, such as Rodger Federer and Tiger Woods (Stevenson, 2011). The company reveals that any time it launches a new brand in the market, its ambassadors are given free of charge to help in promoting the product. This strategy gives consumers a chance to test the quality and the prestige that comes with the watch. Public Relations Consumers of the 21st century are very dynamic and relates mainly with companies that portray good picture. As a result, good public relations have become a very useful marketing tool for the 21st century companies. Kazmi and ? Batra (2009) note that most consumers today prefer buying products or services from companies that care about their welfare and needs. Therefore, in order for a company to maintain perform well in a competitive business environment, it must ensure that it establishes good public relations with its customers and the society. Rolex is one of the companies that understand the value of having strong public relations. In fact, the company attributes its success to its strong public relations department, which has enabled the company relate well by its customers. Rolex understands that its relationship with the public can build or destroy the reputation that the company has built for several years. Therefore, to ensure continued success, Rolex has established a very effective public relations department that ensures that the company responds effectively to the needs of its customers (Freeman, 2001). In this regard, the company has created an E-commerce platform that provides its customers access to all the information pertaining to the company and its products. E-commerce has enabled the company to be able to respond to customer needs promptly, thereby building its reputation. In addition, Rolex’s customers are able to order for products online without any difficult. In fact, unlike other companies that take long to deliver the products to customer, Rolex has a public relations teams that ensures that once buyers orders the products, they are delivered promptly to the customers place. Rolex has also established a social media platform where its customers engage directly with company. The company reveals that it has a twitter and Facebook site where it engages directly with its followers and fans respectively. The social media sites have enabled the company to answer to all the customer’s questions and attend promptly to their needs and desires regarding the products. In fact, unlike other companies that take too long to respond to customer queries, Rolex have customer care teams that work 24 hours a day (Freeman, 2001). As a result, the company has always been able to provide prompt feedback to its customers on the social media. This has enabled the company to enhance its reputation. This is attributable to the fact that its prompt reply to customer queries has made customer view the company in a positive light. Rolex has also sponsored the one time number one golfer, Tiger Woods as part of its public relations with the members of the public. Rolex signed a sponsorship deal with the controversial golfer, citing his strong influence on the golf game. Tiger Woods went through turbulent times in late 2009 all through to 2011. This was attributable to his marriage scandal that saw his performance drop drastically. His poor performance did not go well with his sponsors, such as TGS Heuer one of Rolex’s major competitor. As a result, TGA Heuer dropped him but terminating the sponsorship deal, it had with him (Karlin, 2013). However, Rolex took advantage of this opportunity by going ahead to team up with Tiger Woods who by then had no watch sponsor. In teaming up with the golfer, Rolex explained to critics that it is convinced that the golfer still has a long way to go with his golfing career and that Woods has all that is needed to continue to perform well and win the hearts of golf fans. In teaming up with Tiger Would, Rolex was merely employing the Social Exchange Theory of public relations, which evaluates the cost and benefits of an even in order to reduce costs and maximize benefits (Karlin, 2013). In doing so, Rolex believed that it was creating good public relations since the benefits it was likely to get by teaming up with Woods far outweighed any negative perceptions that the public had about the golfer. Certainly, the fact that Rolex was able to team up with Tiger Woods at a time when every company had dropped him because of the Marriage scandal was a good public relation gimmick. This is attributable to the fact that it demonstrated to the public and its customers that it is willing and ready to give an opportunity to an individual whom they believe will maintain the standards of the company. In fact, this public relation strategy has so far succeeded with the success of Woods in major tournaments in the recent past. Currently Wood has once again emerged as one of the best golfers in the world (Karlin, 2013). Any match he plays today attracts the attention of fans and the media. This gives Rolex good public image, thus helping in building its reputation. The company is also building its corporate image by sponsoring Roger Federer (Stevenson, 2011). This sponsorship is a public relation gimmick aimed to attract tennis fans, especially those who support Federer. Federer has remained one of the best tennis players in the world in recent times. As a result, he has been commanding huge followings and fans. Therefore, sponsoring Federer is a public relation strategy that is aimed to show its commitment to relating with successful people. This is important since it helps give the company a positive image. Individual Sales Promotion Yeshin (2006) argues that personal sales promotion is a very important marketing strategy that most companies use today. Personal selling mainly involves establishing, maintaining and improving interaction with the customers of the company in order to build long-term satisfaction through mutual partnership. This technique of promoting product is very useful since it gives the company the opportunity to engage with the customer directly. Rolex is one among the companies that understands the power of individual selling as a means of promoting its products. Stevenson (2011) reveals that Rolex has established several stores where its experienced sales team directly interacts with the customers. Through direct interaction, customers are able to takes directly to the company’s sales teams. The company, on the other hand, benefits from the individual sales in that it gives the sales persons the opportunity to promote the product directly to the customer by word of mouth. In so doing, the customer gets to know more about the company than they knew before, thus helping in building mutual relationships. In fact, Rolex has been engage in the sponsorship of a number of sporting activities in the past few years. One of the main aim of these sponsorships is to enable the company interact with its potential customers directly through word of mouth. This strategy has kept Rolex above the rest in the industry. References Beckwith, W. (2011). The power of the Rolex marketing strategy over the years. Retrieved from http://www.webservicesdfw.com/2011/09/18/the-power-of-the-rolex-marketing-strategy-over-the-years/ Freeman, G. (2001). Elliot quits MS&L to claim Rolex top global PR post. Retrieved from http://www.prweek.com/article/114369/elliot-quits-ms-l-claim-rolex-top-global-pr-post Karlin, C. (2013). PR in practice: Tiger Woods's reputation. Retrieved from http://blogs.uoregon.edu/j350tigerwoods/2013/06/10/cody/ Kazmi, S. H. H., & ? Batra, S. K. (2009). Advertising and sales promotion. New York, NY: Excel Books India. Stevenson, S. (2011, Oct. 24). Nice watch, Tiger! The New York Times, New York. Yeshin, T. (2006). Sales promotion. London, Cengage Learning EME. Read More