How Does the Marketing Strategy of the Guinness Storehouse Scenario Address the Four Ps - Case Study Example

Marketing Campaign Evaluation Introduction Guinness is a readily defined beer product which has over the years gained a foothold in the international market. Started by Arthur Guinness in 1757, the beer brand has a history that inspires both admiration and loyalty from consumers and non-consumers. It is the same history that is well captured in the Guinness storehouse, which according to Aine Friel (cited by Williams, 2006, p. 491) has ‘... created 2.5 million brand ambassadors who are talking about Guinness”. The marketing experience of the Storehouse is contained in its cohesive theme and achievable memorabilia, which not only engage the customer’s senses, but also make it easier for the company to solicit feedback from people who visit it. Based on such feedback, the brand owners are able to gauge their standing among the public and hence make any improvements that they deem necessary to enhance their acceptance among their existing and potential consumers. Among the notable features in the Guinness Storehouse is the open postcard where visitors are encouraged to leave their comments. Speaking on behalf of the Guinness Storehouse, Aine Friel (cited by Williams, 2006, p. 491) observes that visitors view the open postcard as a direct way of speaking to the Guinness brand managers. Hence, they attach more respect to the brand and what it represents based on such a simple act of transparency. The Guinness marketing strategy was one that arose by sheer chance. Pressed to expand the Guinness Brewery’s hop store in order to accommodate the ever-increasing number of visitors, the company wanted to redesign the premises in order to make it not only a visitor attraction, but also a brand ambassador for Guinness. Notably however, even the agency contracted to redesign the hop store did not know the exact design that would befit Guinness’s history and tradition. A fact finding mission discovered among other strategic issues, that while the Guinness brand has succeeded in inspiring “important connotations of tradition and heritage among its older consumers, it wasn’t engaging younger drinkers” effectively. Gauging this observation based on the definition of strategic marketing, it is easy to see why the agency commissioned to re-design the hop store attached a great significance to the same. According to Jain (2009, p. 23), marketing strategy addresses how the organisation handles customers’ interests, competition, and its own internal dynamics. Hence, marketing strategies are concerned with the future outcomes of a company. If Jain’s (2009) assertion is true, it is easy to understand why the agency underscored the importance of considering the younger generation of consumers. To be exact, most companies try to capture the younger consumers because they not only make a high percentage of the population worldwide, but also have more consumption years ahead of them compared to their older counterparts. During the fact finding mission, the agencies (Imagination and RKD) also identified the fact that the Guinness brewery did not have an on-site learning facility; its history of generosity to the society through the creation of social places; and the fact that brewery’s archive was a resource that people did not know about, as other factors that they (the agencies) would consider during the re-designing process. Consequently, the Guinness Storehouse was designed, built and launched as a “complete brand experience with a training centre, company archive, bars, restaurants, and gallery space” (case study, p. 1). Among the indicators that suggest that the marketing strategy was successful is the recognition of the Storehouse as the leading visitor attraction in Ireland. Analysis According to Jain (2009, p. 94), successful marketing strategies need to consider all the “four Ps” of the marketing mix; i.e. product, price, place and promotion. In the Guinness case however, the beer product was already experiencing wide acceptance among a wide range of ‘seasoned’ consumers. The main shortcoming was its connection with the young and sceptical customers who would probably perceive Guinness as an old brand, with nothing new to offer. This is probably explained by Kissner’s (2002) observation that Guinness had recorded a 3 percent drop in sales in Ireland, owing to the fact that the young consumers perceived it as a beer for the senior set. The Storehouse was therefore a strategically placed to entice the young consumers to regard the beer as a ‘stylish’ drink that could offer them even better value than other brands. By incorporating the training centre in the Storehouse, Guinness also considered the need to acculturate and train new employees. It is worth noting that by the time the Storehouse was launched, Guinness was well into its 243rd year of existence. Probably, the brand had gone full-circle in marketing strategies. With competition from seemingly ‘fashionable’ alcoholic drinks such as Heineken and Vodka among others, Guinness needed a strategy that would make it a worthy competitor especially among the young populations. Fortunately, the brand recognised that it could make use of young people’s love for adventure to improve its competitive advantage. What Guinness did fits well into the experiential marketing theory, which was first proposed by Schmitt (1999) when he stated that “... traditional marketing and business concepts offer hardly any guidance to capitalise on the emerging experiential economy”. To this end, Schmitt (1999) suggested that effective marketing needs to engage all the six senses; i.e. vision, touch, taste, smell, hearing and balance. In other words, Schmitt was suggesting that customer experience is essential to any marketing strategy. Going back to the Guinness Storehouse, the company and the designers clearly attached great significance to the consumer experience while visiting the Storehouse, and the subsequent perceptions that customers would have regarding the brand. The approach by Guinness seems to have borrowed from Pine and Gilmore’s (1998, p. 99) view that when a person buys an “experience, he pays to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages to engage him in a personal way”. Such a strategy seeks direct interaction with the consumers, and is therefore more likely to succeed in converting potential buyers into consumers (Gautier, 2003, p. 8). For experiential marketing to succeed, McCole (2004) states that marketers need to know the essence of their brand. Specifically, the marketers must know the functional and emotional essence of their brand. The Guinness Storehouse addresses the functional essence of the beer brand by showcasing what the company does, its history and its values. Consequently, it is easy for the marketers to position Guinness as a beer whose physical characters are recognisable. The Storehouse also addresses the emotional essence by appealing to the feelings of people who visit it. Those who visit the storehouse probably leave wanting to be associated with the deep heritage and tradition that the brand is portrayed as having. Guinness’s marketing strategy seems to ignore the differences proposed for effective marketing to different demographics. People of all ages, gender or nationalities are seemingly welcome to the Storehouse. As Gautier (2003) notes, creating relationships seems to be the ‘stylish’ way of marketing products. Notably, Guinness does not only make an effort to create relationships with its customers only. Rather, by incorporating the training centre and the open postcard where visitors are free to leave their comments about their experience in the Storehouse, the company succeeds in creating an impression of a brand owner who is willing to listen and respond to what customers think. Proof that Guinness’s marketing strategy conforms to experiential marketing is further seen in the brand’s reduced reliance on traditional media channels for purposes of promotional purposes. According to McCole (2004), unique, creative, ingenuity, and innovative ways of creating and building relationships takes up the role that was traditionally played by advertising channels such as TV and press advertisements. In the contemporary environment, such channels are used to create awareness regarding an existing experience. In the Guinness case for example, traditional advertising methods such as TV commercials are used to create awareness regarding the consumer experience that visitors to the Storehouse should expect. One cannot ignore the fact that the Guinness storehouse success is partly a function of tourism and hospitality marketing, where it is marketed as a leading tourist attraction site. As Hannam (2004) notes, marketing in the tourism and hospitality sector is not always as simplistic as many people tend to think. Specifically, modern consumers of the tourism and hospitality products base their purchase decisions not on prior experiences, but on the real or perceived images projected by the brand owner. In Guinness’s case, this proposition by Hannam (2004) could work either way; first, visitors to the Storehouse could make purchase decisions subsequent to the visit based on their experiences. If for example a visitor deems the Guinness experience worthwhile, they are likely to prefer the brand over its competitors in subsequent purchases. However, Hannam’s (2004) preposition that customers can change their brand preferences without much thought to prior experiences could also mean that visitors to the Guinness Storehouse can easily forget their experience and therefore switch brands as soon as they encounter another brand that appeals to their senses. With constant reminders of the experience however, customers would probably have some enhanced sense of loyalty to the brand (Morgan, Pritchard, & Pride, 2002). The marketing strategy under discussion is not without weaknesses. Considering that Guinness is an international brand, the marketing strategy has a single, but critical weakness - too much concentration on the Ireland market and the few percentage consumers (existing and potential) who visit the country. The marketing strategy thus leaves out other international markets and consumers who may never get a chance to visit the Storehouse. The closest such consumers can get to the Guinness Storehouse experience is through information passed to them by those who have made the actual visit. Such a gap in marketing means that the strategy is not complete in itself and that it would need to be complemented with other marketing methods. A closer look at the hyper reality premise also suggests that the Guinness Storehouse could produce some realities, which would be hard for bars and restaurants that serve to replicate. According to Baudrillard (1993, p. 23), postmodernism has allowed reality to be overshadowed by simulation, illusions, images and simulacra. As such, customers whose first impression of a brand is in a simulated environment expect subsequent experiences to match the same.Unfortunately, reality is usually disappointing and such a situation could lead to customer dissatisfaction and probably a switch of brands. Although the Guinness Storehouse cannot be branded as a hyper real destination, it is rather obvious that the brand experience therein exceeds what customers can have elsewhere in the world. If handled well however, the images or signifiers in the Storehouse can be replicated elsewhere in the international market in order to enhance customer loyalty. As Williams (2006, p. 484) notes, modern-day consumers easily replace direct experiences or knowledge with images or signifiers. After all, Baudrillard (1993, p. 23) observes that the simulations, or the hallucinatory resemblance of things can constitute reality in postmodernism. Conclusion In conclusion, it is worth noting that the marketing strategy of used in the Guinness Storehouse scenario does address the four Ps (i.e. product, place, price, and promotion) albeit indirectly. Through conforming to the experiential theory, the Guinness Storehouse gave existing and potential consumers a chance to engage in the brand experience first hand. As Petkus (2002) observes, the experience economy engages consumers through experiences rather than through the delivery of products or services. Through the memorable engagement of consumers, the experiential marketing strategy satisfies the promotion aspect of the marketing mix. The pricing aspect is addressed by Kerwin (2004, p. 94) who observes that “the beauty of a well designed experience is that while it does not reach nearly as many people as a TV spot, it can attract the very customers who are most likely to buy”. Price has been found to be the least consideration that consumers make when making purchase decisions regarding experiential products or services. Pine and Gilmore (1998) for example found out that consumers usually pay prices well above the market value if they are convinced that the experience of visiting a place is worthwhile, and that it will be memorable. Finally, it is worth noting that the success of the marketing strategy adopted by the Guinness brand was largely because of the uniqueness of the proposition. By capitalising on its unique history, internal challenges, and resources, the brand was able to come up with a strategy that will most likely continue being a tourist attraction in its home country. Ensuring that the visitors are transformed into loyal Guinness customers is something that the company will have to continuously work on. References Baudrillard, J 1993, The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena, Verso, London. Gautier, A 2003, ‘Customer experience- Think again why experiential marketing is the next big thing’, Marketing Magazine September 2003, viewed 23 November 2011, < http://www.allbusiness.com/professional-scientific/advertising-related-services/888501-1.html> Hannam, K 2004, ‘Tourism & development II’, Progress in Development Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 256-63. Jain, SC 2009, ‘Strategic Marketing’, In Jain, S.C., & Haley, G. T, Marketing planning and strategy, 8th edition, Cengage Learning, London. Kerwin, K 2004, ‘When the factory is a theme park’, Business Week, viewed 23 November 2011, < http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_18/b3881103.htm> Kissner, S 2002, ‘Brand marketing: Guinness’, Fast Company, viewed 23 November 2011, http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/58/marketing.html McCole, P 2004, ‘Refocusing marketing to reflect practice’, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 531-539. McDonald, M 2003, ‘Strategic marketing planning: Theory and practice,’ in Baker, M J (ed) The Marketing Book, Fifth edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Morgan, N, Pritchard, A & Pride, R 2002, Destination branding: Creating the unique destination proposition, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford Petkus, E 2002, ‘Enhancing the application of experiential marketing in the arts’, International Journal of Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 49-56. Pine, B J & Gilmore, J H 1998, ‘Welcome to the experience economy’, Harvard Business Review, July/August, pp. 97-105. Schmitt, BH 1999, ‘Experiential marketing’, Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 15, pp. 53-67. Williams, A 2006, ‘Tourism and hospitality marketing: fantasy, feeling and fun’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 482-495. Read More