Hydroxycut and Xenadrine Marketing Campaigns
Introduction
Marketing strategy allows an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities so as to increase its sales and achieve a competitive advantage over its competitors. Hydroxycut and Xenadrine have different marketing strategies. A good marketing strategy should have the users’ interests at heart. A company should not mislead the users on the use of a product in an attempt to gain more customers. Honesty leads to customer confidence and trust. The main aim of any marketing strategy is to have as many customers as possible and maintain the customers. However, if false information is presented then the customers may buy the product but once they realize they have been duped then they will tend to shy away from that particular product. In this research we explore the use of different marketing campaigns by Hydroxycut and Xenadrine and their pros and cons.
Hydroxycut
Hydroxycut is one of the most popular pills in the market. This product has however been marred with incidences of misinformation in their marketing strategies that resulted into the product being recalled. The price for the product was relatively lower as compared to other similar products in the market. Since this product has been very successful in the market, it has a big return and a big budget. This has enabled it to perform some advertisements which have in my opinion been very misleading to the users. In their advertisements, they claim the product is tried and tested and that it has been proved clinically that it is safe for use. However, research has revealed that the product causes some health risks.
Their marketing is a bit flamboyant and is mainly focused more on the expected results and not the proven ingredients. This is a frowned option since some of the ingredients which are used for making the product are hazardous. Overall the Hydroxycut have a pretty solid marketing campaign which can easily attract the users into purchasing the product. This may however not last for a long time since most frequent users of the product have raised concerns on the long-term effects of the product which have not been very good.
Another marketing strategy that the company uses so as to attract more customers is through pricing. Their products are retailing at an averagely lower price. The product has a big brand name with several advantages on the marketing campaign and we would expect that such a product retails at a relatively higher price. On the contrary, the product retails at an amount similar to other ordinary diet pills. A bottle containing 150 pills retails at $40 which is a very low price.
The company also employs the use of money back guarantee policy. With this policy, users are guaranteed on the performance of the product. They are using this policy to attract more customers and gain customer confidence.
In conclusion, the product has a very professional marketing strategy and this explains the high level of success. Considering the great price and a well founded professional company, Hydroxycut has been successful in attracting customers to purchase their products. However, their dishonesty has made the company lose a lot of money on the law suits that has been filed against the company. The company runs a lot of misleading advertisements which were accompanied by misleading photos. The company failed to address the following issues in its marketing campaigns which has made in lose public confidence and trust:
a) Failed to warn users on the potential risks of using the product
b) Lack of adequate instructions which could ensure the safe use of the product
c) Presentation of accurate information – The Company also made false claims about the effectiveness and false testimonies with photographs of those who had used the product.
Xenadrine
This company has a very good marketing strategy. They are not promoting Xenadrine as a weight loss wonder pill. It is being promoted as an energy supplement. Considering its use as an energy supplement, then it is a very good product for that purpose. This product is very good when being used as an energy supplement since it contains caffeine. As it is continuously being used as an energy supplement, it also helps in losing weight. The product should be taken with a combination of moderate exercise and a routine healthy diet plan by the user. Most of the customers are satisfied with the use of Xenadrine.
The manufacturer has been very honest with the users and warns them on the mode of intakes. The users are cautioned not to take more than four tablets in an eight hour period.
Conclusion
I prefer the marketing strategy being employed by Xenadrine to that of Hydroxycut since Xenadrine are very honest with the information about their products. The users are sufficiently warned about the use of the product as opposed to the misleading information which is provided by Hydroxycut that their product is clinically tested and proven. The presentation of false information to the public usually has some dire consequences as it results into users/customers losing trust on the product being advertised.
References
1. Louw, Eric. (2001) The Media and Cultural Production. London: Sage Publications.
2. McChesney, Robert W., Stolzfus, Duane C. S. and Nerone, John C, (2007) Freedom from Advertising: E. W. Scripps's Chicago Experiment (History of Communication), Univ of Illinois Press
3. http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/the-healthy-skeptic-dont-fall-prey1/
4. Gurley B, Wang P, Gardner S (1998). "Ephedrine-type alkaloid content of nutritional supplements containing Ephedra sinica (Ma-huang) as determined by high performance liquid chromatography".
5. Woolf A, Watson W, Smolinske S, Litovitz T (2005). "The severity of toxic reactions to ephedra: comparisons to other botanical products and national trends from 1993-2002". Clin Toxicol (Phila) 43 (5): 347–55.
