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Marketing Mission: The mission of the company is to create a separate niche market in the travel kit category by launching new variants of kits with exciting combinations of high-end products. The products will be highly valued by the target customers and will have a novelty value at the right price. The company aims to target customers through various channels. Primarily targeting travelers who are high end, the company will use distinct strategies to reach the customers and promote the product effectively.
Branding Strategy: The branding strategy will closely align to the needs and aspirations of the core customers – mainly travelers who are busy and do not have time for the mundane activities and packing. The customers are mainly very busy senior executives who do not have the time to think of the smaller things while traveling.
The idea is to create a brand name that has lot of value and appeal to the customers and will be remembered. This is really important for repeat purchases and recall value. The brand name needs to be inspirational in nature and also appeal to a wide variety of audiences and needs.
Brand Name: The brand name chosen for the Travel kit is Touch of Home. The name denotes travel and the longing for home. It has very strong image and brand connotations with frequent travelers.
Logo: The logo for Touch of Home will be a color rendition of ASTOH – with bright colors to create freshness and attractive brand identity in the category.
Slogan: The brand will need to connote friendliness and a feeling of being a ‘helpful assistant’ for busy travelers. It will also convey the longing for home and all its goodness. Our slogan to support the branding strategy will be ‘A Simple Touch of Home’. This will be supported by a value proposition as follows:
You are a busy executive striving to manage time and your travel schedules
You travel once a week, mostly for urgent trips and are in a hurry
The pressures of work do not allow you to think of smaller things like your favorite travel kit – which remind you of home
Touch of Home is a full kit with high end products for all your travel needs – TSA safe, so you don’t waste time at airport security
Touch of Home helps you stay smart, fresh and focused when you travel
Touch of Home takes the hard work out of travel, so you can stay on top of your game
Brand Extensions: In the future, the brand Touch of Home will be extended to include a range of other products to help busy travelers. The company would aim to look at the core brand idea of convenience and add products like a laptop bag and a suitcase.
Marketing Strategy:
Market Sizing: The traveling executives on an average have about 200,000 or more frequent flyer miles. Busy traveling executives often carry very minimal luggage and pack for comfort and convenience. They seldom check-in their bags and are averse to carrying heavy luggage around their shoulders (Kneale, 2009). In 2015 around 895 million passengers traveled in the U.S. with business trips increasing in number; though spending per trip is lower (GBTA, 2015). If we assume the number of travelers coming into Basking Ridge to be 10,000 per month and another 5,000 from the community who travel out, we can safely make some assumptions about the market size for the first phase of Marketing Strategy and growth (Iacobucci, 2014). After the initial promotions we aim to increase the awareness from 0 to at least 60% of local population and targeted online consumers.
Population x %aware x %trial x %repeat = 1000,000x 60%x25%x15% =11,250
Multiply by how much & how often buy
(Population x %aware x %trial x %repeat) x per annum purchase
= 11,250x 4 = 45,000
Multiplied by average retail price paid = 45,000 x $10 = $450,000 (Annual revenue)
Product and Pricing Strategy: Our product will break new grounds in terms of the concept, positioning and promotions. A quick analysis of competition shows that the current market is divided into products which are available online (cheap imports or locally produced), low end sellers like Walmart, Costco and high end stores like Marcus and Nordstrom. Our pricing of $10 will promise high quality and high value.
Positioning: Touch of Home will be positioned as an exclusive travel kit for the discerning traveler. It will ensure a high degree of value (as in properly priced and with the best products) and convenience (TSA compliant, spill proof etc). Positioning statement will be - Touch of Home gives high value products and great convenience to the frequent traveler.
Place: Distribution for the product will be through multiple modes. We will initially launch with a face to face demonstration by a Direct Sales team – targeting high end hotels. The 5 member team in Basking Ridge will help demonstrate the quality of the product to Purchase Managers at Hotels. We will also conduct a free sampling in the first week to gain customer reviews and feedback at the hotels. The product will also be available in airport duty free outlets, department stores selling travel and related goods. We will create an online purchase model. Here the customers can choose a variety of featured products and make their own Touch of Home kit. The assembled kit will be delivered to the homes or office address of the customers. Delivery charges will apply, above the basic pricing.
Promotion: The launch plan will have local Media Press Release with a joint Hotel partner. We will have online advertising on airline booking and travel sites including TripAdvisor, AirBnB, Expedia and so on. We will also use print ads in SkyMall catalog and in-flight magazines. We will launch a Google search campaign to attract buyers and get people to our website. We will launch a social media campaign on LinkedIn targeting CEO level groups to promote the kit. We will also use blogging and content development on travel sites and on Facebook. We will have contests on Instagram to motivate our travelers to post their best travel pictures. We will also tie-up with a few airlines to sell this travel kit on board, duty free. Promotional mix will involve Print ad, online ad, PR, Social media, Sampling, Google ads.
Timeframe: We aim to launch in 3 months. The first month will be spent in budgeting, hiring and setting up the operations. Second month will be used for detailing the implementation plan and training the staff followed by activation of the launch plan. The plan is very targeted taking into consideration the market potential, behavior of core target customers and a focused competitive positioning. The 4P strategy and mission is focused to provide quick awareness and trial for the product. The competitive position and strategy will allow the company to grow quickly in the niche market.
References
GBTA (2015). GBTA Foundation Finds Business Travel Spending to Grow Globally.
GBTA Foundation.Retrieved from:
http://www.gbta.org/foundation/about/Pages/Sept13_article3.aspx.
Iacobucci, D. (2014). MM4, 4th Edition. VitalSource Bookshelf Online. Retrieved from:
https://strayer.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781305561946/.
Kneale, K. (2009). CEOs Say: Travel Tips From The Top. Forbes.com. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/30/ceo-travel-executive-ceonetwork-
leadership-tips.html.
