Part 1: Marketing Communication Plan for Baby rocker
Introduction of Product: Baby product market is expending greatly by introducing a lot of new products and concepts in the market. The market size is growing at a large extent. Our company is also planning to launch its new innovative product “Baby rocker” in the market. The product can be used with baby pram or baby push chairs. The function of product is to provide gentle vibration to the attached device. A person may adjust the range of vibration depending upon the requirement and nature of baby. Few babies like hard rock and few prefer gentle so parents can adjust the range of rock accordingly, based on their requirements. It helps child to sleep while mother may continue with other work. Other features of the product are, it runs on battery so no power plug-in required, product is noise less, easy to use with long battery life. The device is very user-friendly and can be used just by clipping or attaching with baby pram or pushing chair. The product will be available in the market at a very attractive price of £19.99. The battery used in device is rechargeable and can be last up to 3 to 4 hr (lolaloo-rocks-and-baby-sleeps--with-a-bit-of-luck/11723/) s. Today’s parents want to give maximum comfort to their new born/infants. Our product will help in good sleep resulting in better health to infants.
For successful launch of the product it is imperative to build awareness among the potential users about the product and its benefits and for successful communication the first step would be to decide the objective which is introduction of new product in the market and to understand the target audience/market.
Potential/Target Market for the product: the potential market for the product is parents to be and current parents who are having baby between age of 0 to 2 years. In addition to that family’s having mother alone at home to take care of baby, who needs to do other work as well can be potential target. The potential market is quite large with easy access by many available media mediums. Specially in today’s scenario where parent are more inquisitive about various products available in the market, who could be a help in growing their infants in better and comfortable manner, it’s easy to spread awareness about a new innovative product.
Strengths: product is easy to use without any noise. Device is having long battery life with rechargeable battery. It provides time to parents to do other work while their baby is sleeping. Pricing of product is quite affordable.
Weaknesses: all the products have their pros and cons. To enjoy the benefit of the product it is important to purchase the product at the right age of baby. It is also important to set the vibration range of the device as per baby’s requirement. Slight high or low vibration may not work as a best for the baby. Time to time charging of battery is also required.
Opportunity: product is very innovative and will face less competition. The size of target market is huge with easy access. Availability of various communication mediums/media to access the potential market.
Threats: existing competitors.
In the message all the benefits related with product should come out very clearly. How this product is different from existing competitors. Why a customer should buy your product. The product is value for money or not etc.
Effective communication process starts from making customer identify need then move to final purchase of product. Communication should start from building awareness about the product, make customer understand about the offerings, build trust. Communication process move further by making massage more clear and effective. The selection of effective media medium is important part of communication process so that the customer makes final purchase (Kennaugh). The third step of communication process is selection of effective marketing communication methods.
A marketing communication plan is composition of strategic elements. To meet marketing objective it is very important to select right marketing element and utilize that element properly. Its recommended to consider strengths and weaknesses of each marketing element than choose the best based upon your requirement.
In the given case the best suitable marketing elements would be advertisement, public relation and sales promotion only limited to trail (promix). The marketing mediums will be applicable in following manner:
Advertisement: light to heavy advertisement will work in the given case. Light advertisement at pre introduction level will help in building the awareness and spreading the information about the product. Once the product is introduced in the market heavy advertisement will help in brand building and recall. With the help of advertisement we can reach to large number of population with large geographical coverage. Consumer perceived advertised goods more genuine which helps in increasing short term sales. Advertisement with high frequency builds brand image.
Public Relation: this is the most trusted and credible way to advertise your product. When product is relatively new in the market it is recommended to build trust and promote the product through this marketing method. It is comparatively less expensive and very effective medium of promotion. We can give our promotion in various journals based on parenting and can promote our product in various events.
Sales Promotion: at introduction phase it will be good to offer some sales package for trail of product. It will give a comfort level to the customer. Some discount can be offered on the Product if purchased with any other agreed product or some trial period offer can be given.
After selection of media vehicle or marketing communication method the next and fourth step is to do budgeting. The complete marketing communication plan will cost how much. The breakdown of money in to sub activities like each communication method will cost how much. For proper budgeting it is required to know how long each activity will work and frequency of their usage. A proper strategy on utilization of marketing communication tools is required to be in place for effective budgeting. You may cut down few activities if cost is increasing.
The last step of marketing communication plan is proper implementation and monitoring of plan. Once plan is executed keeping a track record and analysis of effectiveness of existing need to be done to carried out modification in existing plan if required.
While deploying a marketing communication plan, it is important to follow certain steps fist to plan then implement follow with tracking and modification. To refine marketing strategy a continuous check and monitoring is recommended (marketing-communication-plan).
Part 2: Influence of Public Relation
Recently few tobacco companies were using public relation medium in terms of corporate sponsorship and advertisement to promote their products. In tobacco industry mostly promotional activities are aimed directly towards increasing the sales of products however some companies identified public relation activities as a tool to enhance their CSR/ public image while building their brand equity. These activities accolade their relationship with other media. Few CSR initiatives taken by companies are: society participation, corporate philanthropy, cause-based marketing, and extending support to minor population. Business leaders described CSR based activities as an economic necessity. These efforts increase the visibility of product and build positive image of brand. The public relation building efforts are mainly focused three objectives:
(1) To enhance public perception towards tobacco companies and to increase credibility, trust and positive change in attitude
(2) Whether enhanced public perception and change in attitude having an impact on products sales or not
(3) If these public relation building initiatives are able to change legal and government bodies attitude and extending support towards tobacco companies.
Corporate sponsorship: providing sponsorship to various events like games, entertainment, social causes, art and cultural activities is a well recognized communication method used by tobacco companies for building their brand and products identity. Corporate sponsorship refers to funding of an event or cause to maintain organization objectives like building brand equity and awareness and also increasing positive image of brand (Creyer).
Tobacco companies objectives behind doing corporate sponsorship is to: (a) build awareness of brand and logo during the event (2) enhance public perception about companies CSR image (3) increase company’s liking among the public (4) to attach with specific market target or lifestyle (5) showcase the affection toward specific community or group (6) enhance positive association of public towards companies’ products (7) increase promotional opportunity (Keller).
Effect of Corporate Sponsorship: As in the objective it is communicated that companies were looking for support from legal bodies. After doing much sponsorship, companies received thanks letters and various groups obliged to them but companies were unable to influence attitude of legislative bodies. These sponsorships done by the companies were not to help the community but were part of their strategic plan.
Corporate Advertising: the objective of corporate advertising is more to build corporate image. The focus on selling is to be lesser. Companies projected, building awareness among youth as their short term objective and increasing credibility as long-term objective. Corporate advertising could be used to build public positive opinion on the products and to make favorable remark on the community. Companies focused on advertisement on smoking preventions. They launch different advertisement for parents and for youth. To ‘youth they communicated the massage “do not smoke” and to parents companies communicated that “talk to your children’s about quitting smoking”.
Effect of Corporate Advertisement: As in the main objective it is communicated that companies were focusing on enhancing public perception towards tobacco companies and to increase credibility, trust and positive change in attitude, both above mentioned campaigns were found great in terms of building positive image of tobacco companies. Company designed advertisement keeping in mind the target audiences, which were found very effective.
One other very interesting example we may take is mining industry of Indonesia (Yudarwati). In Indonesia during Suharto era, Government provided special security around mining area with the help of military. Due to special privilege mining industry was not required to communicate with community directly. But scenario changed post Suharto era, that time it was required for mining industry to adopt a new strategy to deal with business partners and other stakeholders. There were various factors which influence industry to adopt new strategy and perform public relation advertisement methods. The factors were (1) diversified environment having multi cultures (2) number of social conflict between industry management and society (3) decentralized policies (4) transparency in processes and media freedom. Existing methods of public relation were mainly focused on relationship building with various groups like: community, legislative bodies, and media. In Indonesia the index of power distance was on higher side which resulted in low trust and credibility of companies among groups and communities. As per mining industry people public relation methods is about how to work closely with the society and to enhance relationship with community. To fight with this problem companies adopted some methods of public communication (1) they designated their officials to communicate with key people from different groups and build strong relationship with them. Officials were also responsible for understanding the social problems occurring frequently and to design development plan for community to overcome from those problems.
(2) They extended their hand to media groups to build strong network with media personals. It helped them to stay away from negative publicity as mining industry attracts lot of negative media coverage. They focused on giving right and exact information to public with the help of right communication process. They avoided disclosure of controversial issues to public.
(3) Companies designed various community development programmes and spread massage in the community to avail the benefits of those development programmes. They distributed right information about their development programmes.
(4) Companies also focused on building relationship with its stakeholders. They promoted their share and depicted good corporate practice.
(5) Companies started taking approval from community on various infrastructure development projects. They mentioned that only government approval is not enough if community is not approving the project, we will not initiate the project.
Effect of Public Relation: after implementing above mentioned tactics and methods, a much positive change was observed in community attitude towards companies. Companies’ relationship with internal and external stakeholders was improved. As the initiatives taken by companies were focused on building relationship, there is no quantitative analysis available to proove the positive impact of public relation methods but positive impact was clearly visible.
Conclusion: primary objective of the marketing communication plan is to enhance brand image and build awareness about the product. Overall an excellent marketing communication strategy requires detailed understanding of target audience, buying and selling process. Once you are equipped with complete knowledge, you should determine the method to communicate the information to audience. An effective marketing plan draws the process step by step.
Bibliography
Creyer, E.H. nad W.T. Ross. "The impact of corporate behavior on percieved product value." marketing letter . 1996.
Keller, K. L. Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity. NJ: Printic hall, 2003.
Kennaugh, Cindy. develop-a-marketing-communications-plan. 9 August 2011
lolaloo-rocks-and-baby-sleeps--with-a-bit-of-luck/11723/. 17 may 2009. 9 August 2011
marketing-communication-plan. 10 August 2011
promix. 10 August 2011
Yudarwati, Gregoria A. PERSONAL INFLUENCE MODEL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS:A CASE STUDY IN INDONESIA’S MINING INDUSTRY. case study. Australia: Monash University, 2009.
