Q: Clearly identify the central strategic issue(s) facing the company.
Upon the careful analysis of this case study, it is revealed that the major strategic issue that was faced by The Fashion Channel was inappropriate marketing strategies to address the customers. The marketing managers of the firm have not identified a specific target market for their channel’s content. Usually, most of the viewers were females falling in the ages between 35 to 54 years and the firm lacks much data about the trends of its viewership. There were no details present for conducting a research about the likes and dislikes of the viewers because The Fashion Channel does not had proper information about the demographics of the customers. What is more, it was exposed that there was not a specific marketing strategy for segmenting, branding as well as positioning the market.
The Fashion Channel was successful and one of the most viewed cable channel until it faced a competition in the market. The Fashion Channel believed in catering all the viewers with the same content and its basic strategy was “Fashion for everyone”. Such strategy shows the mistake of the company in not identifying the importance of a niche to be targeted in order to build a strong brand image. Market segmentation could provide TFC with an opportunity to divide the broad marketplace into smaller sets of customers so that the most willing customer group can be catered by designing a specific marketing mix to address the targeted segment of the market .
It has been witnessed that The Fashion Channel was losing its position as a leader in the market because there was a significant decrease in the CPM and the perceived value of the customers was considerably reduced. In addition, the viewers were no more interested in saying that The Fashion Channel is their first choice because the competitors of TFC were doing their jobs well by targeting the viewers and showing the content that is required by the concerned segment of the market. The vice president of marketing for TFC, Dana Wheeler, was worried about what is going wrong with the sales and viewership as the two major rivals Lifetime and CNN were firmly penetrating in the market by stealing the market share initially owned by The Fashion Channel.
It was realized by the marketing officials of TFC that the same marketing strategies that are lacking in the company have been used by the competitors to successfully attract the viewers and these strategy were market segmentation, penetration and branding. Lifetime was targeting the females of young age, while, on the other hand, CNN was majorly targeting men as its viewers. TFC was in a trouble as the prices of the content and affiliate fees were also reduced after the entry of rivals in the market. It was expected that if TFC will continue the same strategy of targeting a broad market, it will become unpopular channel in a couple of months and will be soon out of the race of cable TV package. It was an alarming situation for Dana as the marketing official of TFC that the competitors were having better ratings. It was observed that Lifetime and CNN had better rating as compared to that of TFC in terms of customer’s interest of viewing, perceived value of the customers, and awareness about the content and programs. Finally, she decided that the need of the hour is to choose the right segments of market for The Fashion Channel to revive the viewership .
Works Cited
Connell, Nicholas. Fashion Channel Case Study. 2013. 13 October 2014 <http://prezi.com/blcbtzqvwqgu/fashion-channel-case-study/>.
Gemma, Will. 6 Benefits Of Market Segmentation: Less Risk, More Profit. 2014. 13 October 2014 <https://www.udemy.com/blog/benefits-of-market-segmentation/>.
