Cam-Phone Industry Innovative Marketing - Research Paper Example

Marketing Paper School April, 2009 Table of Contents 0Introduction 1Market Analysis of the Cam-Phone Industry 1 The Cam-Phone Industry and Porters Five Forces 2.0 Promotional Plan for the New Cam-Phone Product 2.1Marketing and Corporate Objectives 2.2 Targeting 2.3 Positioning 2.4 Message 3.3 Marketing Strategy 3.3.1 Print Advertising 3.3.2 Outdoor Advertising 3.3.3 Internet Advertising 3.3.4 Direct Marketing 3.3.5 Public Relations PR 3.3.6 Sales Promotions 3.4 Collateral materials 3.5 Contingency Planning 4.0 Implementation and Evaluation 4.1 Conclusion and Recommendation 1.0Introduction The current revolution of information and communication technologies is changing our business environment drastically (Kanter 2005). New technologies influence the way we organize our work and the environment in which we compete, introducing new rules and new relative powers among incumbents, newcomers and even entire markets. This complex, evolving environments are referred to as New Technology Playgrounds. Within the marketing domain, technology has redefined and set into play new marketing strategies. Integrated Marketing Communication is a new approach through which a company draws maximum benefits within a single setting. However, Varey (2001) postulates that integrated marketing is a paradigm shift towards more personalised, customer-oriented, technology-supported marketing systems. This paper designed a marketing strategy for a new cam-phone type product with new features. The first part of the paper does a market analysis of the cam-phone market, the second part of the paper design a marketing plan to give our new product an easy market penetration and a breakthrough. 1.1Market Analysis of the Cam-Phone Industry In business, environmental analysis is an appreciation of an organisations activities vis-à-vis its environment (Lin& Lee 2006). Such analysis has become imperatively necessary in the light of increase competition as present, subsequent operations and strategies direction will be dependent on the result (Lin& Lee 2006). Market environmental influences can better be explain with the Five forces Framework developed by Porter (1985). The market of the Cam-phone products has been dominated in the past by key players such as NOKIA, Sony-Ericsson, Samsung, LG and a host of other players. Here being aware, of the resources, capabilities, and core competence of existing Cam-phone products, in our new Cam-phone product emphasis will be on internal attributes such as staff, quality of the product, defined within cost, time, and quality. We will also make sure, our products are reliable and easily serviceable 1.1.1 The Cam-Phone Industry and Porters Five Forces According to Porter (1985), competitive strategy grows out of an understanding of the rules of competition that set the way of an industry’s attractiveness. He stated that, relations with suppliers; bargaining power of buyers; threats of new entrants; threats of substitute products or services; and rivalry amongst established firms are the forces affecting a company (Porter 1980). For our new product, numerous mobile phone manufacturers are already supplying camera phones, but with our extra features and differentiation strategy this shouldn’t be a big threat. We will strive at having exclusive rights with our suppliers to preserve proprietary know how. In the Camera phone market, customers have a high bargaining power, thus their switching cost is low. Competition amongst rivalry firm is fierce as they compete base on design, product features and functionality. New-Cam phone will compete from this angle, focusing on niche markets. Threat of new entrants is low because of the huge capital, technology, human and resources necessary to enter in to the line of business. However, being aware of the recent global crisis, one need to be cautious as consumers will pay attention more on price than functionality. In a situation where a company failed to abide to government protection laws, the company will face sanctions, and penalties from the state. 2.0 Promotional Plan for the New Cam-Phone Product We have designed this plan to ensure that, the marketing campaign will be commencing three months to the South African 2010 World Cup and two months to the commencement of the London 2012 Olympic Games. We intend to adopt an integrated marketing strategy and hope the two campaigns will last for five weeks ending in July 2012. The rationale for that is to attract maximum amount of customers, create awareness and take advantage of the London 2012 Olympic Games to develop equity for our brand. 2.1Marketing and Corporate Objectives O’Brien & Meadow (2001) refer to objective statement as a cornerstone that guide and provide actions, directions and aspirations for the organisation’s future. Wright & Crimp, (2000) refer to objective statements as sense of direction. Our marketing and corporate objectives will be to gain and create awareness of the new brand and gain at least 5% market share of the global cam phone handset market and gain ROI of 6% for the first year. This will be measured through the use of survey one day after the launch. By the end of the campaign, we intend to gain at least 40% awareness of the new corporate brand on the last week of the Olympic Games in all the areas. Consequently, we envisage to gain at least 8% of the market within all the catchments areas by the end of the campaign. 2.2 Targeting Due to the fact our chosen segments differ in their age, income and spending patterns differentiated marketing technique will be employed for this campaign. Two programs will be developed: first one to reach affluent executives and wealthy non-city dwellers and the second is to attract young fashionable and the student population. Different messages will be developed to reach these groups. 2.3 Positioning The corporate brand will adopt one of Michael Porter’s generic competitive strategies of product differentiation – that is creating a product/service perceived as unique to our audience. Our unique features or benefits of our brand will provide customers with superior value. Here, our intention is to create unrivaled and unequaled products with reduced price elasticity. 2.4 Message We want to attract not only the student’s population but the well-off customer to take advantage of our products with extra services. Our campaign message will therefore reflect the needs and wants of the society in which we operate. One of the possible options for the message is: do all what you can with your mobile phone, if you can’t do it, then its not our product. This message reflects premium context of the place and stresses the desire of the individual to get more value for less cash. As the business will be one of the best Cam-phone manufacturers in each catchment this fact should not be overlooked and should be reflected in the advertisements: 3. Marketing Strategy Our focus is to offer and achieved the corporate goals of the new corporate brand. To achieve the best possible results it was decided to use mixture of pull, push and profile marketing strategies linked to various integrated marketing techniques. Pull strategy will be used to achieve the awareness levels stated above. Profile strategy will work towards interest building. Push strategy will allow reaching maximum number of visitors (Peter et al. 2007). 85% of all budget will be spend on pull strategy, 5% on profile strategy and 1% on push strategy. Rest of the budget will be allocated for contingency plan (Picton & Broderic 2005, De Pelsmacker., Geuens, &Van den Bergh 2007) 3.1 Print Advertising Advertising in print media will be the keystone of the campaign and will have local coverage. The objective of this medium will be to inform people of the launch and build interest. Different newspapers will be used, for example Kent and Sussex Courier. In general campaign will be using A3/A4 groups of publications. Print advertising will start two months into the Olympic. The print advertisement will be distributed through local newspapers in different countries and areas. Some brochures will be printed in partnership with some retail outlet such as Tesco, ASDA, and Wal-Mart. 3.3.2 Outdoor Advertising Outdoor advertising will be presented through brochures 2 sheet size adverts on bus stops, and train stations which will be run for the period of one week (first and third week of the campaign). The goal of Outdoor advertising will be to raise the awareness levels. 3.3.3 Internet Advertising Internet activities of the business will include development of the corporate website which will inform visitors about latest promotion and sales done over the webpage subject to a higher discount. The objective of Internet advertising will be reach target consumers, who spend significant amount of time online. According to national statistics, the proportion of households in the UK who could access the Internet from home increased to 45% in June 2002 (www.statistics.gov.uk). 3.3.4 Direct Marketing Direct marketing for this campaign will take form of direct mail, which will be distributed to the local (living within catchment area) affluent executives, wealthy non-city dwellers and young fashionables through an electronic system and its application. Sales promotions leaflets will also be distributed. 3.3.5 Public Relations PR Since editorial coverage is virtually free advertising, we will rely on PR to supplement paid advertising as a low-cost way to interface our target markets and receive awareness. PR activities will include press releases, newsletters, and on-going dialogs with key editors, writers and news personalities. 3.3.6 Sales Promotions The objective of sales promotions will be to reach maximum short-term sales. We will distribute promotional coupons via direct mail to the potential consumers at the commencement of the campaign. 1000000 coupons with par value of £10 will be distributed to young fashionables and the student population. This amount was found to be optimal, as it is large enough to motivate consumers to come, but on the other hand small enough for us to afford it. 3.4 Collateral materials The campaign requires the business to produce the following collateral materials to support advertising and sales: Brochures will be published and distributed amongst people who would request them through the web-site. T-Shirts for children, who win certain contests and games, while they shop in one of our distribution channels. 2000000 T-Shirts will be produced (costing £0.5 each) and given away. His activity will motivate more children to stay longer and to come frequently to the shopping centre, thus children themselves will encourage parents to come. Other small giveaways will also be created (small cars, dolls and etc). Despite the fact, that children were not primary target market for this campaign it is very important to attract them, as affluent executives and wealthy non-city dwellers often wine and dine as families. 3.5 Contingency Planning Very important aspect of launch will be contingency planning. Oppose to usual 5% this campaign will allow 6% of the budget for contingency planning. This money will be spent to replace the activities which fail to work or on additional promotion. 4.0 Implementation and Evaluation Monitoring and evaluation will take place throughout the campaign. A budget will be set aside from the budget to control the performance of the campaign. To assess pre-launch awareness random survey will be conducted one day into the campaign. Two thousand people will be questioned. Same procedure will take place on the one week to the end of the campaign. For this occasion 1000 people living in the catchment area will be surveyed. Results of these researches will be compared to the target and all necessary measures will be employed to reach the goals of the campaign. Sales and revenue figures will be tracked on the daily basis. This will help us to determine the effectiveness of the campaign. In case when actual figures will differ significantly from the plan emergent measures will be employed and sponsored from the contingency budget. References O’Brien, F., & Meadows, M. (2001). How to develop visions: A literature review, and a revised CHOICES approach for an uncertain world, Journal of Systemic Practice and Action Research 14 (4) (2001), pp. 495–515. Peter, J. Paul & Donnelly, James H. Jr. (2007). Marketing Management – Knowledge & Skills, 8th edition, McGraw Hill. Porter, M.E. (1985). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York, NY: Free Press. Porter, M.E. (1990). Competitive advantage of nations. New York, NY: Free Press. Sommers & Barnes (2004) "Marketing, 10th Edition" chpt 4, page 98/99 Soyer, A., & Asan, U. (2007). Identifying strategic management concepts: An analytic network process approach. Computers & Industrial Engineering Wonglimpiyarat, J. (2004). Amex’s strategies for launching the smart card innovation. Technovation 24 (2004) 773–777 Wright, L. and Crimp, M. (2000). The Marketing Research Process, 5th Edition, Prentice Hall. De Pelsmacker P., Geuens M, Van den Bergh J, (2007): Marketing Communications: A European Perspective. 3rd Ed. Financial Times, Prentice Hall Europe ISBN 0 273 70693 Picton D., Broderic A. (2005) Integrated Marketing Communications 2nd Ed. Financial Times, Prentice Hall ISBN 0 273 67645 8 Kotler et al., （2003 ）Principles of Marketing: Read More