The Major Attributes of the Fisher & Paykel Brands - Essay Example

1. The major attributes of the Fisher & Paykel brands ly: Fisher & Paykel, Elba and DCS include the following; I. The major attributes of Fisher & Paykel include the manufacture of state of the art household appliances such as washers, cooker, vacuum cleaners and refrigerators among others. Another attribute for the brand is that it has achieved a successful marriage of highly practical appliances with cutting-edge chic design. They are also renowned for producing energy efficient fridges and washers. The products have already been listed as approved suppliers of the State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEERP) scheme in US. II. Dynamic Cooking Systems (DCS), is a brand that manufactures “high-end, commercial style” indoor cooking ranges, refrigeration and outdoor cooking appliances. Its attributes also include energy efficient fridges and washers. III. Elba is an Italian manufacturing company which manufactures a variety of appliances from cookers, refrigerators, dish washers as well as dryers. It has been promoted in New Zealand and the U.S. as an alternative to F&P. 2. Band equity is primarily concerned with value of the brand name and it generates loyal customers. In this case the customer would have the knowledge and favourable disposition to the brand. Fisher & Paykel have been successful in building their brand through the Customer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model of consistently delivering on high quality. Their cutting edge design won them a household name. This model identifies four steps which denotes questions asked by the customers as diagrammatically illustrated below. The first question is meant to create identity with the brand which is very important for customers to gain understanding of the structure of the brand. This is brand building stage. The second stage is mainly concerned with establishing brand meaning. Customers may not be at liberty to buy something they do not understand hence the need to link brand with certain properties. The third question is about brand response where responses to identification and meaning are sought. The fourth question is about relationship where brand loyalty is created. The DCS developed its brand equity through building strong associations between a brand name and a category or set of benefits based on the CBBE model. On the other hand, ELBA developed through a consistent imagery through the use of the same model by Fisher and Paykel. This model is very important because it seeks to identify the stages involved in the creation of brand loyalty from grassroots level. 3. The benefits and advantages of using social communications or public relations (PR) as part of Fisher & Paykel’s integrated marketing communications strategy for rejuvenating the brand include the following: it creates brand awareness among the customers, Public relations is an effective communication tool that can be used to attempt to make loyal customers through provision of relevant information and knowledge about the brand. 4. The most ideal segmentation strategy Fisher & Paykel as a company is geo-demographic segmentation. Basically, geo-demographic segmentation converges geography and demographics of a particular group of people in an identifiable area. According to Strydom (2000) this process is concerned with grouping consumers according to characteristics such as age or household structures. Geography on the other hand is concerned with the location or area where people live. In most cases, people who live in the same area are assumed to have similar socioeconomic characteristics. Clustering can be used and its main goal is to classify places and neighborhoods not the people who live in those places. Clustering has generally proved a useful tool in the segmentation of markets. 5. A suitable target for Fisher and Paykel should be the middle aged people between the ages of 25-35. These can keep pace with the changing environment and are likely to be stimulated by new fashionable products introduced into the market unlike the older age. Most of the people in this target group would be still in the process of beginning or building life hence they are likely to be attracted by quality products. 6. The marketing communication objectives of Fisher and Paykel include raising awareness about the brand among the customers and potential customers. The other objective after creating awareness is to persuade them to buy the products. The other objective is to create loyalty through establishing mutual understanding. 7. Both push and pull strategies can be used but the most idea in this case is the push method. Pushing the product through the channel implies that the manufacturer promotes the product by means of advertising and sales promotion to the wholesalers who also use the same techniques to push it to the retailers until up to the customers. This is ideal because the manufacturers know the characters of their product and how it can appeal to potential customers. On the other hand, a pull strategy posits that demand for a product is first created among the customers through advertising which will make the manufacturer to stock the product. 8. The promotional mix is often made up of four elements as going to be discussed below. For the above mentioned organisation, it should have advertising as the preliminary stage of the promotional mix as a way of raising awareness of the product. This is followed by sales promotion which is meant to stimulate sales among the customers as well as likeness of the product. This is followed by personal selling which is face to face presentation of product or idea to the customer as a way of promoting an increase in the sales of the product. The fourth element is publicity which is meant to give the customers more knowledge about the product being offered. This also involves giving information about special events 9. Advertising is mainly targeting the potential as well as old customers and different media is used. The main aim is to raise awareness about the product. Sales promotion would be used to offer various incentives to the customers such as price discounts. Personal selling will be used to convince the customers about the special features characterising the product. Publicity would be mainly used to provide information about the given brand to the customers. This is more of publicizing the brand in the media. 10. The best message strategies for Fisher and Paykel should always be guided by the image of the brand. The message should be tailored in such a way that it appeals to the targeted customers with relative easy. This message should communicate why brand would be the best choice in the market. The best message strategy therefore should mainly focus on the positive features of the product. 11. In this model, there is need to make the customers aware of the brand offering through advertisements. Sale promotion can then be put in place as a follow up to brand awareness. Concerted efforts would be made to create a situation where there is direct contact between the representatives of the organisation and the customers. After ensuring that the customers now have the knowledge about the brand, publicity can be effectively used so as to stimulate continual growth of the sales. References Strydom J. (2004), Introduction to Marketing, 3rd Edition. CT. Juta Press. Read More