Promotions Management at Australian Energy Providers - Case Study Example

Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3 Background to Company and Industry……………….…………………………………………………………………………….3 Target Audience Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 Communication Objectives…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…5 i) Brand Awareness………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5 ii) Influencing Interests or Consumer Attitudes…………………………………………………………………….…6 iii) Influencing the Purchase Intention……………………………………………………………………………………..7 Creative Strategies………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…8 i) Creative Strategies about Brand Awareness……………………………………………………………………….9 ii) Creative Strategies about Influencing Interests or Consumer Attitudes……………………………..10 iii) Creative Strategies about Influencing the Purchase Intention…………………………………………….11 Media Plan………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12 i) Television…………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………..12 ii) Internet…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..13 iii) Newspaper and Magazines…………………………………………………………………………………………....14 iv) Billboards…………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………….…14 v) Mobile Media………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………15 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………16 References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………17 Introduction:- I am an IMC Director at Australian Energy Providers (AEP). This company was formed by an English WWII veteran, Jesse Daniels, who after the war immigrated to Australia for a better life. Our company’s job is to provide Australian populace their electricity requirements, by providing them with electricity generated from power plants operated from coal, fossil fuels, wind turbines, Solar Power and Biomass Fuel. Background to Company and Industry:- Our Company can be classified as a mid-level to big corporation, and majority of its stock is state owned. Our Head Quarter is located in Sydney. With three more offices located in Perth, Melbourne and Canberra. Our processing plants are located in Melbourne and Perth. I have been assigned the job to develop a plan for my company’s and its products, that will make our company and its products, as well as our customers and clients increasingly climate conscious by emphasising on the use of green energy. The steps taken by the current Rudd Administration in which we have to switch from environment polluting carbon fuel to more environment conscious green fuels. The steps that management should take in order to switch to environment conscious company is to depend more and more on the electricity, we generate from using Wind Turbines, Solar Power and Biomass Fuels. And in the future we also vision to create electricity through Nuclear Energy which might be dangerous but can be one the cheapest, cleanest way of producing clean energy. Australia has the highest per capita carbon emissions among developed nations at 18.1 metric tons of CO2 emissions per capita but less than United States which is at 19.54 metric tons of CO2 emission per capita. (World Bank, 2010). Target Audience analysis:- Target Audience is a specific group of people, recognized as the projected addressee of an advert or message. It is also known as target population. (businessdictionary.com). The Australian populace are increasingly concerned with the climate change. Nine out of every 10 Australians (89 per cent) are now more than ever concerned with the climate change, with almost 49 per cent being either extremely concerned, with 32 percent very concerned and 17 percent some what concerned. Further, for nearly 3/4th of the populace believes that new electricity generation should come from clean energy. (climateinstitute.org.au). The general Australian population is becoming increasingly aware of the threat that is posed by the Global Warming and the impact that it will have on the Australian Environment and economy. In Australia, the working class makes up 58% of the population and the 30 makes up the lower middle class. (Rick Kuhn, www.anu.edu.au). Looking at these figures, the working class of Australia makes up more than half of the Australian population means the money is there, for people to afford our products and services. Let us be clear, the Australian working class is strong as compared to other countries, and the literacy rate among Australian is high at almost 99% that includes 99% male and 99% female. The Upper middle class or the working are genuinely worried the way global warming is going to affect them. And they have the potential to the reverse if not all some of the effects of the global warming. As for the rich class, they should be our primary target because they have big money to spend which is more than obvious and their houses can be much more easily equipped for green equipment for electricity than the working class and lower middle class. Our Secondary Target Audience should be Australian middle class, because the low income house holds are much more worried about the food that they are going to eat then the environment. The recession has already hit the Australian Working Class, and we have make lease schemes through which the working class can afford our products and services. For now we just have to sell products and services at which we can achieve break-in level. Communication Objectives:- Planning is very important when it’s about assessing the success of the company. The Failure to plan, It’s like a sailboat in the middle of the ocean without sails. You have no clue in which direction you will be sailing. This is why Communication Objective is principal to triumph of the company. 1. Brand Awareness:- The probability that clients and customers to be familiar with the continuation and accessibility of a corporation manufactured goods or service. Crafting brand awareness is the singular most fundamental way to develop step in promoting a product. It doesn’t take long to judge a band. Our company already has a brand which is popular among upper-middle class and elite classes. Our Brand the Australian Energy Provider (AEP) has the potential to also find grounds among lower middle classes by creating campaigns that is also visible to this class of the society. By giving a sense of our company’s commitment to a greener environment in which our society can live a healthy life. Our company generates at least 70% of the electricity from Coal and Fossil Fuels, and the remaining 30% from the Wind Turbines, Solar Panels, & Biomass Fuels. And our general image among the populace is that we are creating an environment that is just polluting the environment. The pace in which the Australian populace is becoming increasingly aware of the about the climate change or global warming, is casting our company in a bad light. Our motto is “Cheaper than Cheapest Electricity”, always gives an impression that cheap electricity always leads to unclean environment. We have to change our obsolete motto, to something new and innovative that gives a message that is much more about not only providing customers with only cheap electricity but also gives them an impression that they are not paying for something that will lead to unclean environment. Like, “Cheap but Clean Power” etc. Our Brand should be different than all the companies, there are many companies that provide the exact same products and services that we provide, and they can only see it, through brand. Our Brand has to be distinctive, distinguished, should have a familiar sound to it, and should also have a K.I.S.S. Factor (K.I.S.S. = Keep it Simple Stupid).Our brand should also give a clear and simple message, If out brand does not give a clear message about what our company offers than there is no point in awareness of our brand. There are close to zero chances that our company would incur new customers and profits. The value of our brand depends upon how the customer perceives it, the importance of listening to customers is more or less equally depends upon the customer’s perspective of the brand. Because the customer is the only reason the brand will become something of an item. Let’s be clear, our success depends upon the client. And their opinions are important about our brand awareness whether it or not it is giving the right message about our company’s commitment to cleaner environment. Product Quality is also very important because it will also influence our brand. Now days a lot of Chinese products are in market, that allows people to generate electricity without creating much CO2 emissions, and they are also quite cheap. But what they lack is quality. Chinese Products because of their devalued currency makes products that cant be trusted in the long term, but what we have to do is to provide services and products that are not only good in their quality but also can be reliable. 2. Influencing Interests or Consumer Attitudes:- The interest of the Australian populace varies with time. The Brand Awareness shall also have a substance that will influence interests or the consumer attitudes. As mentioned above the Australians are becoming increasingly concerned about the environment and the impact it will have on the Australian Economy and lifestyle. Now days, Australian Populace are looking for renewable sources of energy, for example Wind Turbines, Solar Panels etc. Their attitudes are changing that a few years back they didn’t care much about the electricity, but now with the rising costs of electricity, which is influencing every aspect of their life from cooking, to driving, to washing clothes, etc. they are increasingly looking for newer through which they can get cheap electricity. Solar Panel or Wind Turbines are getting becoming increasingly prominent among the Australian Populace. A great deal of Australian population are becoming increasingly concerned with the use fossil fuels, and a considerable amount of those people think that the only reason Australia supported US invasion of Iraq was because securing the supply of oil to Industries despite of Iraq posing no actual threat to Australia. It’s this thinking that we have to tap into. The guilt that some Australians feel about the role they played in causing the climate to change and the global warming. To use the guilt for our own purpose. Sometimes giving them a rejecting notion that they as humans are responsible for global warming while other times forcing this guilt on to them in order for them to buy our products and services. 3. Influencing the Purchase Intention:- Expressions of positive attitudes toward the environment are only weakly related to the consumption of alternatives to products that are environmentally unfriendly. Yet, socially concerned marketers and public policy makers still appeal to general environmental concern (GEC) when trying to de-market environmentally sensitive products or market more friendly alternatives. “The consumers always comes first.” now the slogan that is used, it gives the customer something of a touching feeling that giving them our highest priority, is our highest priority, Influencing the customer's intention sounds very is easy but its really not. It sounds a lot than it is. It is. For the sake of an example, a person wants a beverage, he goes to the supermarket, and goes to the beverage section, now here he sees many brands, like Coca-Cola Co. and Pepsi Co. Now his intention is to buy a soda drink. But to influence him, into getting him Pepsi Co. or Coca-Cola Co. is influencing his intention. The same is with the green products, the products and services that our company offers if also offered by a lot companies, some of them are even better than us. But to present our self in a way that is better than others to influence the consumers purchase intention is where the pickle lies. The solar panels we offer gives a certain amount of power per panel or the wind turbines that we offer are provides a certain amount of power per turbine. There are also companies which give better power capacitance than our company, and there are also companies which gives power capacitance lower than Australian Energy Providers (AEP). We have to find a middle ground in which we fit in between these companies, the factor that some companies gives better capacitance than our company and some companies gives lower capacitance than our company should be criteria for the way we provides our products and services. Creative Strategies:- A determination of what an advertising message will say or communicate to a target audience. (en.mimi.hulu) Creative Strategies Regarding Brand Awareness:- Awaring people about a particular can be very easy or it can be very difficult depending on what kind of a brand it is. Our brand Australian Energy Providers (AEC) has some innovative qualities attached to it, The word “Australian” gives it a very nationalistic feeling, the word “Energy” in the name shows our work, and the word “providers” shows our commitment to fulfil the requirement of energy and power in people’s life. The strategies about brand awareness can be diverse like, it can be sending people mobile phone texts from unknown numbers telling the consumers about our brand what we represents, can be done through billboards, and how do we convey our message, a change in our company’s logo that can be visible from a car travelling at a speed of 120 mph. Give it a stylish feeling, it can be printed on cars using magnetic ink, which gives it some shine when people driving in other cars, the pedestrians, someone watching from his office or from his or her home can see the brand of our company and get curious about what our company is all about. Giving away free logos in the form of car stickers, door signs etc. to let people inform about the product and services our company has to offer. By putting pop-ups on internet sites, by doing a pay-for-click schemes. Like there’s an add on an internet site for example, “Want to Earn 5 Bucks; Click Here”, And when the person clicks on it, it shows our company’s logo, doesn’t matter if we actually don’t pay anyone who clicks on the add, but for an instance the brand of our company comes in front of his eyes and that image is in his head, doesn’t matter if he’s goes and get it, if it creates a sense of curiosity in his head, what matters is that the message has been conveyed. By awaring people about our brand by organizing concerts for underground bands, and the concert tickets the products name could be written to let people know, about the group that is responsible for the entertainment, or by writing the front wall of the stage “Sponsored by; Australian Energy Providers”. So even when people are listening to the singer, they unintentionally glance at the wall and gets an idea who is sponsoring the event. Charity events should be conducted that should be sponsored by our company. Creative Strategies Regarding about promoting product or company’s Knowledge;- People nowadays are also interested about how a company came into existence, its founders, knowledge about why a particular kind of logo is created. Let’s be clear Nokia was Paper Company when it first came into existence, and now it is the biggest cell phone company in the whole wide world. People are known to be curious about a company way of working, and their products and services are offered. As for Australian Energy Providers (AEP) letting the people informed about our company can be helpful and beneficial to our company, Letting the people know why are we trying to switch from Coal and fossil fuels to Wind Turbines and Solar panels, Our commitment to fighting global warming, Our future prospects about providing people with greener energy, By giving an illusion that our company is fully committed to fighting the climate change, even though if we are not. By showing documentaries, about how we manufacture our products, like wind turbines, how they built, what is the phenomenon about working of wind turbines, How much energy is currently produced about by the use of Wind Turbines, and how much it is anticipate in the future to grow, the environmental benefits of using wind energy over coal and fossil fuels, the same is with the use of solar panels, what are shedding bright lights on its advantages and shedding a dimmer light on its disadvantages, why should it be refereed over Coal and Fossil fuels, and letting the audience decide which is better for example, which should be given preference, Wind Turbines or Solar Panels. The current capacity of Solar panels to produce electricity and what are the future expectations about the capacitance of solar panels. By uploading the company history on internet, for example Wikipedia.com can be a useful tool for doing that, the advantage that we have the ability to write anything that we want about our company, it can even be lies, because nowadays for ant informative purpose on anything whether it’s a cell phone company like Nokia, whether it’s about a coffee company like Starbucks, a beverage company like Pepsi Co., the first thing that people use is WIKIPEDIA, and they don’t care what they are reading is true or not, as long as they read something that is well structures, and if any references are asked we can quote fake references cause no one has time to check the references. By distributing the company brochure, and presenting it in a well-organized and eye-catching form through which the populace can know about our products, and if interested can know about the history of our company and what we have been through to get our company through the difficult and competitive times. Creative Strategies For Influencing the Purchase Intention:- The intention of the consumer of ever buying anything for any purpose plays a big role, undeniably. Let us be clear, the way we have to influence the consumer’s intention is by influencing his desire for a cleaner energy, manipulating his or her mind, that he or she is responsible for global warming the change in climate, the heavy rains, the droughts, the big fires, the floods etc. The damage to the economy that it causes, quilting him or her into buying the products and services of our companies, by organizing a telemarketing campaign, in which we call random people, and telling them about the dangers of global warming, and the way in which climate is changing, and also telling them the advantages of why they should give to preference to our company against our rivals. By giving the customer instalments schemes, through which they can be assisted in affording our companies products and services if they come from a low-income house holds. By introducing internet schemes and gaming’s. In schemes, their can be draws of about 10,000 and above people, in which there will be lucky draw, and the winner will be given the company services for a year, etc. In games, their can be games, like Farmville on facebook, checkers on yahoo etc., the one with highest scores will get desired products and of the company. By defaming other companies, by creating marketing campaigns, in which the other company’s products are shown to be that of inferior qualities. And their association with Chinese products which provide raw materials of bad quality. Media Plan:- The Media Plan for carrying our Product Objectives can very diverse. There are many different devices through which we can promote our green and clean energy. Television:- With Satellite Communication becoming a reality, the powerful, pervasive impact of TV is worldwide. TV is the-' most intimate mass medium (Dayal, Zachariah, Rajpal, 1996). The Use of television can have profound impact on the people. In this time of recession when people are increasingly preferring television or other means of entertainment like cinemas. Our products and services can be promoted by the use of TV commercials. This can be done through product placement, in which our company’s logo can be used in background of any sit-com or drama show etc. Unintentionally, our product will sell it self, as it can also be promoted by its anchors mentioning in it in business news, like the value of our stocks and our competition with our rivals. A short documentary about our company’s history, the tough times it faced, with all fierce competition among all the rivals and how it managed to survive it. We could sponsor shows on channels like Discovery Channel or National Geographic, which can be about the Climate Change, and Global Warming and its economic, social, climatic, effects on the Human society and how can they be death with. Internet:- The revolution that was brought about by the invention of internet can be explained with out any mentioning of it. As mentioned above about how Wikipedia, can be used to promote our company, about how no one will care even if lie on about our company’s prospects, our services and products, our commitment to green energy and products. We can modify our company’s website by changing our motto, by changing our company’s whole direction from cheaper energy to cheaper and clean energy, let the whole world know that the change the want to see and the people who were responsible for polluting the planet has woken up and now they will take the steps necessary for us to fight all the things that would result in the form of global warming by buying products and services that not only provide cheap but are also green. Putting adds on facebook, Google wave, orkut, MySpace about our company’s lines of products and services and also by setting our company’s page on these social networking site, and if possible establish a social networking site of our own. By initiating blogs about how our company’s is better than others. By shedding flood lights on our company advantages and dim lights on our company’s disadvantages, also by shedding flood lights on our rival companies disadvantages, by shedding dim lights on their advantages. YouTube can also be a useful tool; it can have interviews of our customers and clients, and can also have clips of how our products are assembled. It also is used to defame other companies by putting ads not associated with our company. But by fictional companies who can directly quote other companies by name in order to cast them in a bad light. Newspapers and Magazines: - Newspapers and Magazines can also be used as a media tool, for promoting our products and services, like by placing ads about our company’s products and services, by hiring ghost writers for our companies, who can write articles regarding our field of supply people with their electricity demands. Writers who can exaggerate our company’s performance. The contacts within print-media can be very useful for example, by establishing contacts with the company’s management or with their editors, giving them benefits, or if they are a tough sell, bribing them so they can present our company’s performance in the way we want. Billboards:- Billboards can also be a useful medium for the promotion of our company. A person driving in a car, a guy just walking down the street etc. can be any consumer from any walk of life, if he just for a instance take a look at the billboard, and an image is formed there about our product and how our company is thinking about going moving towards more greener way of providing energy and by launching new products, that would reduce green house and carbon dioxide emissions, sooner or later, may be the same day, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next week, next month, or may be next year, that person will think about going independent from the companies that he depends for his electricity needs, companies that produce electricity through coal power plants, by burning oil and petrol, he will already have in his brain about our company. That’s how we can increase our sales. Mobile Media:- Use of cell phones now days are quite common. And it wouldn’t be wrong to say every Australian now uses Cell phones. And it has already been used by many companies to promote it products (Capon, 2009) The campaign that can be used for our company to promote our is by sending messages through our company’s mainframe about the impact of global warming and how it is effecting our planets atmosphere, followed by our company’s name. By doing this, we can educate people about our the dangers of electricity produced by burning of coal and fossil fuels, and how we can tap into it, by advertising our company’s services about providing electricity and how we are moving further and further in the direction of providing electricity that is generated by the use of wind and solar panels. Our company should design an attractive song that along with use in Television commercial should also be used as ringtones in mobile ringtones. Conclusion: The effective planning for transition in which we have to move from CO2 emitting corporation to an environmentally friendly, green energy producing company has to be done in a way that cause our company profits instead of incurring short-term losses. Every communication objectives that includes Brand Awareness, Influencing Interests or Consumer Attitudes and Influencing the Purchase Intention their combination through creative strategies has to implement through a Good Marketing Individuals. Here we have to remember certain things while implementing those marketing strategies; 1) We are in a recession, We have to see our company’s Financial situations as well as the consumers financial situations, from rich to poor, we cant take for granted that rich class can afford our products in these times. 2) Our marketing officials should be creative enough match the quality of our rivals, we are not alone in this recession, marketing cost are the cost that are not included in the product costs, so better marketing there is, more of our products will sell and more money can be allotted for marketing. 3) We have to take risks, but we can afford to make mistakes, because it will only take a second to tank the market against our favour, and it may be very difficult for us to climb back to where we are now. 4) We have to understand that marketing does not work over night, it doesn’t change minds in a day, and we should have a long term plan in which our marketing plan should be executed instead of a short term. 5) Marketing concepts that that makes people believe that they can afford our products in recession. (Lamb, Hair, McDaniel, 2010). 6) The company should downsize if there is lack of funds for the marketing. There should be no sentiments; we shouldn’t sacrifice the whole company in order to save few jobs. References:- 1- www.anu.edu.au 2- Raghubir Dayal, Peter Zachariah, Kireet Rajpal, 1996 Advertising and promotion management 1st e/d, Mittal Publications, New Delhi, India 3- Noel Capon, 2009, Capon’s Marketing Framework, Wessex Publishing, New York USA 4- Charles W. Lam, Joseph F. Hair, Carl McDaniel, 2010, Marketing, Cengage Learning, USA 5- http://datafinder.worldbank.org/about-world-development-indicators 6- http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=39:media-releases&id=170:climate-change-remains-potent-political-issue 7- http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/target-audience.html 8- http://en.mimi.hu/marketingweb/creative_strategy.html 9- Read More