Introduction
The success of the generic strategy as the planning function of the organization depends on the organization capability and capacity to organize and implement this strategy. At the organizing and implementation stage, the marketing function plays an important role and advertisement plan is essential for the maintaining and growing the sales volume of specific target product lines. Additionally, any advertisement campaign, focusing on product promotion should always have an indirect objective to reinforce, introduce and explain the brand and its image to the customers and other stakeholders. The objective of this document is to develop an advertisement plan for the Pampers brand and focus on the Pampers Pants product specifically.
Situation analysis
Pampers is a family and baby care brand under the Procter & Gamble (P&G) brand portfolio. Incorporated over 40 years ago, Pampers today is the world´s leading brand in baby diapers. The company focuses on the research and development activities and attempts to build its competitive advantage on superiority and innovative design and product characteristics. While innovation and quality are the pillars of the Pampers competitive market offer and the company is a recognized leader in its patent Absorbent Gelling Material (AGM) technology, such competitors as Huggies from Kimberly Clarck and Japanese Mamypoko Brand, gaining popularity in Europe and Latin America.
Internal Analysis
Since the launch of the Pampers brand in 1956, the company´s marketing strategy was always inspired by “seeing the world through the eyes of the babies” (Pampers, 2014). Pampers pursues global strategy with the local face, trying to bring forward the image of babies, typical for the culture, where the company advertises.
Generic Strategy and Marketing Plan Alignment
Pampers started the development of the product with the failure of the first trial in 1958, when hundreds of babies felt uncomfortable in the newly developed plastic product. This inspired the company to look for more advanced and complex solution and resulted in the creation of the first truly special diaper six months after the first test in Dallas. Following the success in the United States P&G decided to expand the brand globally. In 1970s the company started its international journey with the generic strategy, based on the following four pillars:
- Winning the consumer by understanding his needs and desires;
- Creating a cost advantage versus the competition with a focus on better, cheaper and faster solution;
- Winning the customer through accessibility and special Pampers shopping experience;
- Creating exclusive Baby care culture with the external focus.
SWOT
Based on the internal analysis, it is possible to identify the major challenge for the company, which lies in the cost-effectiveness of the business. The reality shows that baby care business is very competitive, and the strategy of Pampers brand involves very asset-heavy and material intensive planning. This places emphasis on the cost efficiency and consistent focus on market share growth to leverage the costs with the sales volume.
External Analysis
Competitors
Pampers operates in very competitive market environment with strong and internationally present rivals, such as Kimberly Clarck, Johnson & Johnson and Mumypoko brands, bringing to the market similar products at comparative prices. The core of the competitive environment is the ability to innovative to maintain competitive product proposition and build on customer´s loyalty through creating affiliation and strong brand image with unique advertisement campaign.
Customers
The main customer for Pampers is the mother. The company is trying to compete in the middle class and higher customer segments with the variety of products, which can address the needs of the babies in all the situations. This focus is seen through the variety of products; include Pampers SuperSec, Total Comfort, Splashers, Pampers Pants and other types of the products. The objective of the company is to build customer loyalty through offering superior quality product and competitive price and one-stop-shopping solution. An insight into the external market environment illustrates that mothers are looking for an innovative approach from the companies, which will build on the feeling of bond and comprehension from the brand. Pampers attempts addressing this potential though building on Pampers mothers´ club, blog and other social networks, which develop not only the product, but the entire experience of baby care (Pampers, 2013).
Environmental Considerations and Implication on Advertisement
International business environment is increasingly complex due to growing size of the businesses and more specific customer demands. International community and governmental organizational are increasingly concerned with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the focus on this aspect is, at the same time, an opportunity and responsibility of the companies in the baby care sector (Armstrong and Kotter, 2012). With that in mind, advertisement campaigns of the company should be focused around CSR and community and bring in CSR focus in the overall business model.
Advertisement Plan
Objectives
Taking into considerations of the internal and external analysis, the objective of the long-term advertisement plan is to build on the Pampers brand experience and associate the brand with innovation and quality. The ultimate goal of the advertisement is to reach a broader public and make mothers feel connected to the Pampers brand.
Creative Strategy
Organizational generic strategy is concerned with winning the consumer and the customer. The company intends to reach this goal through offering consistently excellent quality and innovation in the customer experience and product design. The advertisement strategy should focus around the main customer segment – mothers. The advertisement campaigns, mainly focused on new Pampers products, such as Pampers Pants and Splashers will be positioned in three segments: social media, street advertisement tools and TV. The company should develop four different advertisement campaigns. First of all, social media promotion through sharing experiences of the real mothers and organizing baby pictures competition to attract attention and build on the unique experience around the brand. Secondly, the company should develop local “baby faces” and promote the brand through advertisement on street banners and public transport, such as metro panels. Finally, a comprehensive short TV advertisement campaigns should be done throughout the locations with the focus on local faces and illustrating the experience of the consumer (baby) using Pampers product.
The advertisement strategy will be formulated by the marketing team and further implemented in a three stage process, based on the introduction of the geographical regions. Social media advertisement should be run simultaneously at all locations while street and TV campaigns should be implemented as a pilot in North America and Europe and further expanded globally, based on the evaluation of the effect on the target market.
Budget
The advertisement campaign tentative budget is USD$ 240,000. The initial budget for the development of visual and TV advertisement is estimated at USD$ 210,000 and on-going working capital for social media and project evaluation and readjustment activities of USD$ 30,000.
Testing and Evaluation
Upon the receipt of the entries, the marketing team will start the competition for the “Pampers international face” and define three or four babies, which will become the advertisement core of the company. The photos of the models will be used for the banner creation and social media advertisement along with the pictures, sent by the customers. TV campaign will be run with a larger amount of baby models, which will be chosen locally by the geographical region to ensure a higher level of cultural alignment with the local communities (Giles, 1991). Upon the completion of the pilot project in North America and Europe, the marketing team will evaluate the response and impact of the advertisement on sales and image of the brand and will launch the campaigns in other regions with necessary adjustments.
Conclusion
The objective of the presented advertisement campaign is to create stronger bonds with the target customer – mothers, and reach broader public, increasing sales and improving brand image across geographical locations. The suggested advertisement plan is concerned with three core elements: bringing forward global strategy through local thinking, introducing the CSR into organizational image and creating Pampers experience through innovative ways of connecting with the mothers.
References
Armstrong G and Kotler P (2012). Marketing.An Introduction. London, UK: Pearson Education. Print
Giles W (1991). Making Strategy Work. Long Range Planning. Vol.24 Issue 5: 75-91. Print.
Piercy N. (1990). The Logic of Being Illogical in Strategic Marketing Planning. The Journal of service Marketing. Issue 3, Vol.4: 27. Print.
Reuters (2014). Procter & Gamble Co. Reuters [Online]. Retrieved 24 June 2014, http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=PG.N
Pampers (2014). About the Pampers Company. Integrated brands Corporate Website [Online]. Retrieved 24 June 2014, http://www.integratedbrands.org/brands/pampers/@@details
