Question 3: Creaholic
Introduction
Creaholic is a company of innovation and high technology products that was founded by Elmar Mock in 1986. The company serves its clients with the help of the team of highly knowledgeable and skilled, technical and creative-minded individuals. The company usually works on the clients’ project to provide them with the innovative solutions to improve their products; however, it also started working on its own projects (Creaholic, n.d.). Being an innovative and high technology product development company, it is very important to market and advertise the company to increase its brand awareness so that the company can attract more clients in the modern world. It is very important for the high technology companies to brand themselves. Therefore, this paper is aimed at developing a promotional plan for Creaholic to build up its branding.
Advertising and Promotion proposal for company’s management team
The management team of Creaholic can use the advertising and promotional pyramid to understand different media channels for its branding. For the successful branding i.e. brand awareness and reputation of Creaholic, it is very important for the management to utilize different advertising and promotion channels according to their importance. The pyramid of advertising and promotion is as follows (Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009):
(Adapted from: Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009)
For the successful branding, it is very important for Creaholic to develop its brand awareness to a large audience so that more people will get to know about the services and products of the company, the more the targeted clients will get attracted towards them. Keeping the pyramid in focus, the advertising proposal for Creaholic is as follows (Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009):
Media Advertising
Advertising is the most effective means of a business to attract the clients, buyers or customers. Therefore, Creaholic first needed to develop effective media advertising. For this purpose, the company can use different media such as print media, electronic media, billboards and social media and online advertising.
Public Relations
Creaholic can use public relations to promote its brand message as the buyers trust other buyers and companies as well as media, therefore, whatever the image is portrayed by media, the buyers trust and consider it as true. The company, therefore, is required to develop good public relations using media publicity with the help of press releases, press conferences as well as sponsoring the events and charity.
Direct Mail
Although, media advertising and public relations are very effective to develop brand awareness and reputation, however, direct mailing is also important to specific targeting. For effective direct mailing, it is important for Creaholic to get a quality list of the specific target audience either from brokers or any other source.
Trade shows, seminars and Training
Advertising, public relations, and direct mailing are usually focused towards increasing brand awareness among the customers, the trade shows, and seminars are important to introduce new products and to increase sales of the company.
Catalog, Lit. & Manual
Catalogs and manuals are important to provide additional information to the buyers and clients so that they can well aware about what products the company is offering and what are their benefits, additional features as well to provide them with the warranty of the product and service. Creaholic as offers innovative and technical solutions to the clients, therefore, the catalog is very important to make them aware about which type of innovations and solutions the company provides.
Telemarketing
The company can also provide telemarketing service to its clients and buyers through which the company can either call directly to its existing clients, or the clients and buyers can call to the call centre of the company. It supports the sales team and provides 24/7 hours service to the customers.
Personal selling
It is the top of the advertising pyramid and means to deal with one customer or client on one time. Personal selling is an important tool to generate sales; however, it directly depends on the effectiveness of other tools at a lower level that attracts and gets the attention of the target audience. For personal selling, Creaholic is needed to provide a well designed platform.
New Media
New media is also known as the internet and technology-enabled promotional media. New media can be used at all levels of advertising and promotional pyramid. Being an innovative and high technology company, it is very important for Creaholic to focus on new media for its brand awareness to integrate the internet with all tools of advertising and promotion.
Within the media advertising, Creaholic can advertise itself using banner advertising. Banner or display ads will help the company to develop long term construction of brand. In addition to banner advertising, the company can also use sponsorship to associate the brand with popular websites. Search ads are also very popular in new media that are actually used to increase the popularity of the company’s website using search engine optimization. Creaholic can use different keywords and tags in its link so that more visitors can easily find and visit its website. Other than the banner ads and search ads, the company can also use the latest technologies in new media that include Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is the most popular technology of this contemporary world that is developed with the user generated content and social media networking sites. It is very important for any type of company in the modern world to advertise and promote itself using social media. The company can use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, You tube, Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram, to communicate to the mass audience and to provide two way communication channels to the clients. The company can also provide blogs to develop user generated content about the company as people in the modern world trust on the words and experience of other customers rather than simply trusting the company.
Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is the latest technology that is the change and advancement in Web 2.0. It is the branding of the company using advanced internet tools such as Smart phone applications, mobile marketing, etc. For this purpose, Creaholic can provide downloadable software, applications, clocks and other mobile apps. Web 3.0 is more personal type of advertising and highly interactive with the target audience.
Ideas for content marketing
The first idea is to write 100+ blogs and posts about the topics relevant to the niche market such as Creaholic can write posts about innovation, innovative solutions, intellectual property, technical issues and problems and their solutions, etc.
Predict and forecast new trends within the niche market while writing posts.
Use images, videos, and articles in your posts, mainly with controversies.
Branding Campaign
Type of strategy, the company should undertake
There are various strategies that can be used for branding of the high technology product company as shown in the table 12.2 below (Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009):
(Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009)
Creaholic being an innovative company should use the third strategy in the table i.e. effectively harness Web 2.0 technologies and new media. It is the most effective, useful and efficient strategy of branding in the high technology environment. The consumers in the technological world are less interested in traditional media such as television and magazines, and they are now more involved in social networking and blogging. Also, it directly results in user generated content. Therefore, the company should use web 2.0 technology for branding and should integrate Web 2.0 connections and communications.
Ingredient branding
Creaholic should use ingredient branding as it is very popular these days and the companies are involved in the battle to develop them as ingredient brand in the high technology market. Ingredient branding will help the company to achieve competitive advantage and to become a global brand by mixing its ingredient in the recipe of other brands and companies as the Intel did by its Intel inside Ingredient branding. Although, there are some issues and challenges in ingredient branding such as with the poor performance, and bad image of original manufacturers, the image of the company can also be damaged. Further, the product differentiation issues can also be raised when the other brands will use the same ingredients. However, it is still beneficial for Creaholic to use ingredient branding as it will provide the opportunity to enter in the market of manufacturers as well as strengthen the credibility of the brand (Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009).
Question 5: Research paper
Introduction
Nanotechnology is one of the growing technology industries with immensely positive outlook. Influence of technology on human life is evident, and it can be observed into different dimensions. Several consumer goods are being made more effective through the use of nano-particles among them (Sargent, 2008). This part of the paper is divided into two different sections. Initial section deals with the dynamics of nanotechnology industry, which is followed by an evaluation of existing marketing strategy of chosen nanotechnology company integrated with recommendations for improvement. The company selected for this purpose is Zyvex Technologies.
Players in the Eco-system of Nanotechnology
Suppliers
There is a variety of nanotechnology suppliers catering for a diverse range of companies offering products that contain nano-materials. Some of the most prominent suppliers in the underlying industry include NanoInk, Nanoco, Aspex, DuPont, Inframent Corporation, Zyvex Technologies (the largest), and Xolves to name only a few. These companies supply materials to manufacturers relating to different sectors such as batteries, water quality, air quality, fuels, fabrics, foods, electronics, cleaning products, etc (Understanding Nano, n.d.).
Consumers
Consumers of nano-materials can be divided into two broad categories i.e. B2B and B2C. As discussed above, nanotechnology companies supply the material directly to the company looking to improve the quality or increasing the efficiency of their products. These companies can belong to any of wide range of product categories some of which are mentioned earlier. Several pharmaceutical, garments, food, and other companies are sourcing the services of different nanotechnology vendors. B2C category includes the end-users of nano-particles. These include the consumers/users of food, water, technology, equipment, coating, medicines, washing powders, and other products containing nano-materials in their compositions (Understanding Nano, n.d.).
Government
The government, being one of the biggest customers of nanotechnology is contributing prominently to the growth of the industry on the whole. The role of the government in this connection extends into different dimensions. For example, it purchases sensory nanotechnologies to integrate them with detective devices used by different arm-forces. By the same token, it utilizes the underlying technology in aircraft in its aerospace fleet (Understanding Nano, n.d.).
Competitive Landscape
Nanotechnology industry is characterized by tough competition growing slowly due to huge legal and investment-relate barriers for new entrants. Names of competitors in the market have already been discussed. This is one of the revolutionary chemical advancements that is being welcomed and adapted by multiple industries. Quality, efficiency, innovation are some of the key success factors in the underlying industry and the competitors sticking to these considerations are enjoying good competitive strength. There is a balance between the power of buyers and suppliers, as buyers cannot switch easily due to limited options, and suppliers do not want to lose some of the well-established names in the sector. There are low threats of substitutes or indirect competition, as nanotechnology is one-of-a-kind solution for the consumers’ specific requirements (Sparks, 2012).
Brief Introduction of Zyvex Technologies
Headquartered in the USA, Zyvex is the oldest names in the nanotechnology industry. Zyvex was incorporated in 1997 and has evolved tremendously in different aspects of business within a short time-span of around 20 years. Recent mergers have made the company be regarded as the world’s largest nanotechnology company. It supplies nano-material to different aerospace, pharmaceutical, food, fuel, and some other types of companies (Nanalyze, 2014).
Evaluation of Strategy
For the evaluation and analysis of the strategy of Zyvex, STP Review (Segmentation, targeting and positioning) analysis is one of the most significant and useful tool or framework. STP framework of analysis helps to identify the strategies of the company to analyze that what the company is doing better than its competitors by grouping its target market and positioning its product and services within that market. In general, the tool provides the overview of the company’s strategy of how it decides its target market and what is its strategy for its positioning.
STP Review
STP review includes three elements. These three elements are segmentation, targeting and positioning. In general, it is a complete process of market segmentation in which the company divides its customers into groups then decides target market and then decides strategy of positioning its product and services within the decided market segment as target. The process is based on four steps include 1) division of markets into various groups, 2) identify the customers in each group, 3) decide target market and 4) product positioning within the segment. The report is going to identify that how company segmented its market, what is its target market, what is the profile of its customers and how it positions its products and services within its target market?
Segmentation
Zyvex is very clever in grouping is market into segments and groups (Tomczyk, 2014). As the company develops nanotechnology products, its major strategy remains to segment its market to identify the segment that searches for the nanotechnologies for their advancements. Therefore, the company grouped its market based on behavioral segmentation. The company segmented its market into a group of those business and organizations that look for the ways to improve their products, process and services and their behaviors towards the nanotechnology regarding their knowledge attitude, rate of usage etc. It shows that company remained focused towards differentiation to group its market with the common needs and priorities. Further, the company
Target Market
Positioning
The company to position its products within its target market uses some specific strategies. The company positioned itself within the target market as the highly innovative company that offers unique, different and advanced nano products. The product differentiation and innovation is remained the major strategy of the company to position itself within the market.
Recommendations
The company is only focusing towards product differentiation, innovation, and product development; however, for the effective marketing of high technology products, it is important to create a balance between product differentiation and cost effectiveness to provide low cost affordable products in the market with high profitability. The company with its merger although presented various benefits but the financial benefit is not disclosed. Therefore, the company is recommended to focus on cost leadership strategy by reducing the cost of its production, so that it can achieve the financial goals and benefits as the competitive advantage. The cost focused strategy will also help the company to attract government institutes to buy its products and technologies for their departments as the government tries to spend as less as possible amount to maintain its budget.
Implementation Concerns
Barriers to success
The company can face many issues and barriers in the implementation of the recommended strategy. Although, cost reduction is essential for financial objectives, however, it can impact on the quality of the product that is the biggest barrier to the success of this strategy. The product quality and its efficiency are the major strengths of the company that can be damaged by cost reduction actions. It can directly impact on the reputation, image and position of the company in the market.
References
Creaholic. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved July 4, 2016, from; http://creaholic.com/about-us/history
DeMers, J. (2013). 50 Content Marketing Ideas For Your Website Or Blog. Retrieved July 4, 2016, from; http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/04/16/50-content-marketing-ideas-for-your-website-or-blog/#7ef4c8697211
Mohr, J. J., Sengupta, S., & Slater, S. F. (2009). Marketing of high-technology products and innovations. Pearson Prentice Hall.
Nanalyze. (2014). The World’s Oldest and Biggest Nanotechnology Company. Retrieved July 4, 2016, from http://www.nanalyze.com/2014/06/the-worlds-oldest-and-biggest-nanotechnology-company/
Sargent, J. (2008). Nanotechnology and U.S. Competitiveness: Issues and Options. CRS Report for Congress. Retrieved July 4, 2016, from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34493.pdf
Sparks, S. (2012). Nanotechnology: Business Applications and Commercialization. Boca Raton: CRC Press
Tomczyk, M. (2014). Nanoinnovation: What Every Manager Needs to Know. John Wiley & Sons.
Understanding Nano. (n.d.). Nanotechnology Product Suppliers/Companies. Retrieved July 4, 2016, from http://www.understandingnano.com/nanotechnology-product-suppliers.html
Utdallas. (2003). Marketing Nanotechnology: A Conversation with Zyvex. Retrieved July 4, 2016, from http://www.utdallas.edu/~chasteen/Zyvex%20-%20Interview.htm
Appendices
