Soul Mates Marketing Plans with Respect to the Competition - Term Paper Example

Soul Mate’s marketing plans with respect to the competition Competitors, and the strengths and weaknesses of each: Soul Mate is a brand which is selling innovative toys and which maintaining the high quality parameters. The retailing structure of the company makes many competitors in the United States. The main competitor is the Wild Planet, The amazing toy manufacturing company in the United States. The Wild Planet was launched in 1993. The wild planet produces high quality toys for children and most of the products are non toxic and non violent in nature. Wild Planet’s toys are gender specific and encourage the boys and girls to explore their world (Ryan et al; 2000, p 54) The strength: The main strength of the Wild planet is the quality and the product pricing. All the products of the Wild Planet’s are tested several times before they come to the market for sales. The internal strength of the company is the idea generation team. They have a tremendous branding and marketing strategies which attract the kids as well the parents towards the brand. Weakness: The main weakness of the company is the small product length. They don’t have long product line like Mattel. Mattel: Mattel is the market leader in the United States. While the Mattel acquired the third largest toy manufacturing company Tyco Toys Inc in 1996, the company became extremely confident over the future performance. The Barbie and the Hot Wheels are the two show stoppers in the toy market. However, the companies combined sales represented only 19 percent of the total American Toy market. (Snyder, 2002, p 14) Strength: The Mattel Inc is a giant company in the toy industry. It is rated as the biggest toymakers in the world. The main strengths are the two brands and they are the Barbie and Hot Wheels. The company’s sales are being driven by these two brands. However, Soul Mate is in manufacturing innovative toys and they don’t manufacture small scale models of cars. Mattel is a threat to any toy manufacturing company as the deep financial pockets can allow them to buy any company in the toy industry. Weakness: Mattel is a big company with a global exposure. However in the United States kids are boarded with the same old Barbie and Hot Wheels cars and may be that is the reason it contributes only 19 percent in the total sales of toys in United States. The new product idea is not that strong. Differentiating Soul Mate from the closest competitors: From the above analysis it is very clear that the Wild Planet is the main competitor for the company. To differentiate soul Mate from its competitor it is very vital to understand the strength and weakness of the competitor. The business strategy of the Soul Mate and that of the Wild Planet is more or less same. The Wild Planet sells the innovative toys like Soul Mate and some of their products are Spy gadgets, Spy Guns, innovative knowledge box for kinds and many more. They also have their exclusive toy stores like Soul Mate. The main weakness of the Wild Planet is the short product line. And the branding and advertising is not that strong. Soul Mate would apply all the product ideas of Wild Planet to be in the competition. And at the same time it will spend some more money on the advertising and branding so the Brand Soul Mate would come to their mind fist while they go for buying toys. Leader or follower: It is a very tricky and important question for the Soul Mate. The positioning of the brand is very important. With the positioning strategy the brand would proceed in the market. However, as the Soul Mate is new in the market so it should follow the market trend at par with the innovative toys. Instead of taking a big steps and spending huge to be the leader, it should be slow and steady in the market so it would become the leader in the near future. Most of the marketing and advertising strategy should be parallel with the advertising strategy of the Wild Planet. However, branding should different as Soul Mate should portray itself as the best brand in the market as far as the quality and pricing are concern. The Branding strategy and the positioning are the main functions to be done carefully to have a sustainable rhythm in the competitive market. It should be remembered that for the first 3 years the sales figure is not the main factor, the main factor is the growing value of the brand. If the brand becomes the most trusted brand among a small group then it won’t take longer time to be the most trusted brand among most of the buyers and this is the way it would become the market leader in the future. Macro-environmental issues: The Macro-environmental issues are very important as neglecting of these factors would be a disaster for the brand. The main macro-environmental issues are Legal issues, Technological issues, social and the economic issues. Among all of these issues the legal issues are very much important. One illegal exposure can kill the brand instantly. It takes lots of time to build a brand but with one legal issue the brand becomes void for many users. The usage of safety chemicals, and maintaining the environmental factors properly would keep the laws away. The tax and other things should be taken care of. The social issue is also important. The social responsibility of using safe chemicals should be maintained by the company. And if the economy is going down then the company should lower the price irrespective of the high revenue to reach more kids. New technology should be adopted to survive in the fast moving market. Identifying the significant trends in the market: Kids’ minds are very much unpredictable; they don’t know what they will do after few moments. They try to find something new all the time. It is a very important question for the toy makers that why kids abandon their old toys so fast? Is it because the toy has become old or is it because the new toy has been noticed by him or her in the market? For most of the toy maker it is very vital to think like a kid if they want to understand the demand of the kids. “Think like a kid” (Giacobello, 2001, p 14) the new theme for the toy industry nowadays. Gone are those days while kids used to like cars and dolls. Kids have become smart nowadays and they want new things in their toys. This is the reason for spy gadgets to be the top seller in the toy segments. So the new trends it the innovative toys for the kids. And these innovations are possible for the toy makers if they start thinking like kids. Soul Mate should take the initiatives to build one internal team who would be in touch with kids all the time. The weekly play sessions should be done in the Soul Mate Stores to understand the kids mind. References. Giacobello John. (2001). “Choosing a Career in the Toy Industry”. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. Ryan Leo V, Gasparski Wojciech, and Enderle Wojciech. (2000). “Business students focus on ethics”. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Snyder Francis G. (2002). “Regional and global regulation of international trade”. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Read More