Soap de Villa Soap Brand Background and Customer Value Satisfaction - Case Study Example

Title: Soap de villa Name Institution Date of Submission Brand background and customer value satisfaction Soap de villa is a handmade soap brand from Australian. It began with the promoter who has suffered from allergies since she was young: she cannot use any normal commercially made body soap, or her skin would be itchy and cannot sleep whole night. This symptom really annoyed her until once she found that goat’s milk soap was good to relieve this problem. After that, she started to think about how to spread that kind of good products and help people who have the same problem like her, based on her family’s support and her professional business sustainability assessor background, she has researched the idea around two years then Soap de villa was created in the early 2013. In UAE, people are used to using soap in their daily life, for example, washing hands, faces, bodies, dishes and clothes. It is more popular than other type of cleansers (e.g. shower gel and powders). According to (Euromonitor.com, 2014), in average, each U.A.E. people consume around 23.68 units soap per year as well as the soap market in U.A.E. is increasing more than 20% every year. With the advance of economy in this country, people start to care more about the soap material and prefer to separate the usage. They start to separate the different soaps in different ways, for instance, for hands and for bodies are different. Furthermore, family members are choosing different soap that is suitable for their skin or taste. It is clear that United Arab Emirates is a good target market to focus on. This is to meet the customers’ demands and expectations. The main purpose of Soap de villa is to offer what other commercially produced soaps cannot meet. Many people out there have various kinds of allergies which some arises from the products and soaps we use. Soap de villa therefore steps in to fill the gap created. When some people use soaps get allergies or the skins dry up. This results from the chemical additives in these soaps. Soap de villa is friendly to human skin. It keeps the skin in its natural form. According to the Soap de villa official website, there are some promises they made for customers. Firstly, all of the products are made by hand and only using fresh organic Goats milk which from the North coast of New South Wales, not the cheaper ingredient milk power. Secondly, they do not add any chemical ingredient; they only use organic essential oils and natural colour in the products. Finally, most of the packaging papers are approved by FSC that can be recycled or reused. Not only for the products, but also they develop the “green life” idea in their company, they try to make some changes as below: using energy saving light bulbs in the office, installing tap aerators in all the taps to save water, installing a solar electricity system to save 70% of energy consumed, using double side printing for office notes even using the office furniture which are from their neighbours or partners who do not used anymore but the quality is still good. Development Strategies of Soap De Villa product Product Soap de villa’s products are emphasised on handmade by natural goat milk as well as the product has already got the Australian Made logo to prove the quality. They also make their product category very simple and easy to remember: lemon myrtle pie, jasmine tea, country lavender, rose bouquet, mango smooth and natural milk bottle. The total six different smell products would have different collocations and packages for customer’s needs. Price Soap de villa published the price around AUS$3 each soap. Comparing with original commercial brands which are selling in the supermarket is around AUS$0.8-1.8 for each (Coles, 2014) and the similar focus on handmade brand Lush is around AUS$2.3-3.2 for the same unit (Lush, 2014). Obviously, the price is between these brands and competitively. About the selling strategy, Soap de villa now is manly selling the products the official website and in six physical stores which are all located in New South Wales. Customers manly purchase the products via internet, phone call or go to the retail shops. In addition, now they add the new platform that people can use smart phone to browse and buy the goods online. MARKETING STRATEGIES Use of blogs and social sites The company will run social sites like twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social sites where the company and customers can meet interact and share ideas. This will help in the penetration of United Arab Emirates market. It will provide a forum to the customers to ask questions about the company’s products Organizing charitable events and project The company will also organize charitable events in order to give back to the society. It will do so by addressing the pressing needs of the poor in the society. By so doing the Soap de villa will be penetrating UAE markets. Just like how the company is currently in Australia, for every product sold, AUS$1 will be donated to donated for charity. Work hand in hand with the local networking groups and businesses The company will team up with local UAE businesses who are interested in working with together with the company. This is one of the strategies in penetrating the market. The company will therefore take part in cooperative marketing by hosting and supporting events. The company will also corporate with pharmacies, chemists and medical doctors to recommend Soap de villa to patients and clients having skin allergies. Guerilla Marketing The company will print some T-shirt that will be distributed to the esteem customers and partners. The company will also participate in various events in order to get platform for marketing Soap de villa in in the entire United Arab Emirates. The company will also team up with event organizers where some of the workforce will be involved in the designing of the events. In the process, the company staff will be branded with the Soap de villa T-shirts Ask for referrals The company will keep in touch with their users of Soap de villa. It will create an online platform where they will be in contact with the company. The company will there asking for referrals to the potential customers. Successful referrals will earn them some loyalty points, T-shirts and or discounts. Customer involvement The company will value the input from the customers. In order to penetrate the United Arab Emirates markets, the company will write some guest posts in the company blogs and other social sites used by the company. Their views will be shared across the sites. Improved marketing accounting The company will do an all-inclusive analysis to find out where the customer value is being harnessed, where the company is reaping big and where losses are made. Corrective measures will be put in place to check on the loss avenues and boost the on where the company is capitalising on Print media The company will carry out adverts in the print media like newspaper, magazines and other print media. The information carried out in the print media will give all the information regarding Soap de villa. Full disclosure of the information will make the citizens of United Arab Emirates to make informed decisions and choose the company’s quality products made from natural products. Mail The company’s platform of interacting with its customers will be a great avenue where the company will request customers and users of Soap de villa to give their email addresses. The company will survey these customers to find out more how well they are aware of other products. The company will send digital information to them about the products. These customers will be of great value by sending and inviting the potential customers Strategies that will protect the environment Currently Soap De villa Company uses Australian local products. The production process is handmade. It takes place in the North coast of New South Wales while the business is situated in Sydney (Soapdevilla.com.au, 2014) The environment is very natural. The designs of the company offices match with the company’s philosophy of protecting our precious earth. The atmosphere in the offices is friendly as the temperatures are naturally controlled to give comfort. The floors, walls and roof is insulated to regulate and maintain temperature to optimum level thus making cooling and heating more efficient and cost effective. During winter and summer, the temperature is regulated by heater and air conditioner by raising or lowering the temperature by 1°C (Soapdevilla.com.au, 2014) The company will be shipping the Soap de Villa to the new stores and market in United Arabs Emirates. With time the company has assessed the situation and decided it will get it set up a production unit in United Arabs Emirates, this is because it will be cost effective. The current company’s philosophy will be replicated in United Arab Emirates market Soap de villa is made from natural from natural ingredients. That is, they are made from fresh goat’s milk supplied from the New South Wales of Australia. They do not powdered milk because of chemical ingredients they contain. The company also uses organic fragrance oils for coloring and sweet small (Soapdevilla.com.au, 2014) In addition, Soap de villa cares more about the social responsibility; they cooperate with the local groups to donate for orphanages and support. The Shale project, when people buy one product from Soap de villa, the company will donate AUS$1 for the AIDS epidemics in Africa. In their opinion, a business would not only concern about itself, it has the responsibility to help other people who need more supports, and lives will have more meaning when people try to make difference in other people's lives. Just like their motto - “Change your life, change the world". References Euromonitor.com,. (2014). Home Care in the United Arab Emirates. Retrieved 16 November 2014, from http://www.euromonitor.com/home-care-in-the-united-arab-emirates/report Soapdevilla.com.au,. (2014). Soap de Villa. Retrieved 16 November 2014, from http://Soapdevilla.com.au Read More