Summary and Recommendations
This report is about the implementation plan for Integrated Marketing communications for GoPro Company. It manufactures most versatile cameras and their accessories for people with active lifestyle. The company and its products are the result of passion and innovation by its founder and current president Me. Nicholas Woodman. The idea of the product was struck to Woodman when he was surfing in the beaches of Australia in the year 2002. He then painstakingly worked to launch the products in 2004 and achieved tremendous growth for the company in last two years. GoPro went public this year in June. Since its IPO, the share price has already doubled. The company has excellent range of action cameras (HERO series is very popular). Though company is placed well, it has competition from Sony, Contour, Canon, Apple, etc. There is need for the company to review its strategy and align its Integrated Marketing Communications.
This report contains a brief analysis of the problem, identification of target market, segmentation, steps to implement the Integrated Marketing Communication and budget expected for implementing the plan. There are two primary target segments in this IMC plan (Youth and Media professionals). The company need to strrenghthen its strategy and reaches out to the new markets and customer base. For achieving constant engagement with the customers, this IMC plan may be utilized.
The company and brand GoPro emerged from the idea of Nicholas Woodman, founder and the president of the company. Nick Woodman identified the problem of capturing moments of importance while on a holiday to Australia in 2002. He was finding difficult to film his friends’ and his surfing performance. Taking shots from far by a third person gave clumsy results, and Nick looked for some equipment to capture action while it happened and hand free. The solution was available, but it was expensive. The uneasiness of capturing the memorable moments during adventure in Australian waters prompted Woodman to create the idea of an invisible camera. He dreamt about a wearable camera that can unconsciously become part of owner’s body and can capture his/her moments of greatness. GoPro as a company began its journey from the year 2004 and now it is a public company head quartered in San Mateo, California. The company has many trademarks; the most popular are GOPRO, BACPAC, HERO, CINEFORM, etc.
Based on the insight gained by the founder Nick Woodman, GoPro is positioned to help the active life stylers and outdoor enthusiasts to capture, deal with, share and enjoy their meaningful, memorable and joyous life experiences .The Company has designed the products to enable its customers to capture immersive photo and video shots of themselves participating in their engaging activities. The customers of GoPro are leading active life styles and are passionate about their activity. Our customers include some of the world’s most active and passionate people. The company is aware that it has grown through the viral sharing of excellent photo and video outputs by its customers. The main source of revenue for GoPro is its products i.e. camera and their accessories. The company feels proud of its products and look forward o be a leader in action capture segment, and claims as the producer of world’s most versatile cameras. The company offers cameras, accessories and video / photo editing software as its product categories.
The GoPro products enable people to document themselves while they actively pursue their interests and hobbies. The products of GoPro are appealing equally to professionals and ordinary consumers. In the last three years before the company went public, almost hundred percent growths in revenues and net income was posted. By the end of the year 2013, the company has almost achieved a billion dollar revenues.
Recently, the observers of GoPro realized that the business segment it is working in lacks entry barriers. Currently, the company holds about 47.5 percent market share, which is the largest in action camera segment. But the market is emerging and fragmented, and market share seem to be fragile. New and smaller players can introduce cheaper products that can eat away the share of GoPro. The veteran company Polaroid has recently launched a product called the Cube. The product is in competition with ‘Hero’ range of cameras from GoPro. Also, the price of the Cube is just $100, but the GoPro cameras cost more than $250. The features of the Cube are matching with that of the HERO3. Most important strategic issue GoPro has to resolve is it’s overemphasise and stubbornness on the media segment at the cost of neglecting competitive and manufacturing issues. The founder and president Nick Woodman seem to believe that GoPro is now a product maker for media professionals. Losing focus on the action moments in adventure and sports may be detrimental to the company.
Another important matter the company need to review is the GoPro Network. It is a video channel where the customer of GoPro can upload the video content which will be hosted on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Xbox 360, and Google's. The promotion of content in the social media sites will not yield any revenues to GoPro. Definitely, the video posts help to build brand awareness and positioning. The company must strengthen its position with the active adventurers, sports persons and outbound activists, and develop an integrated marketing communication strategy to use social media and traditional media in right proportions. GoPro receives direct competition from Sony, Canon, Nikon, etc. and indirect competition from Apple, Kindle, etc.
Identifying Target Market
Market for any product is large and no company in the world can serve all people. The practical solution for this problem is to divide the large market into sub sections or clusters of customers with identical wants and needs. Every identical group or cluster will have a demand pattern that need to be understood by the company who intends to serve that group. Primarily, the company needs to decide whether it is going to serve the entire or large market, or focus on specific portion of the market. Even multi-segment strategy, also could be planned. Whether single or multi segment marketing, the company need to uncover, understand the need / want patterns of the customers before deciding or initiating any marketing program.
As mentioned above, before identifying target market, the company must be aware of the market trends. Knowing market trends is identifying patterns in the market. Sales figures may give information about the trends, but knowing that highly educated people prefer the product gives sharper information to the company. Secondary research is a good choice to start with. There are many sources of secondary data that can help GoPro to gather information on the probable segments, market, specific customers, industry, etc. Secondary information gives a glimpse of the nature of the segment, but it may not give exact information that is specifically useful for the company’s marketing. Seeking information from the market for specific reasons may require the company to do first hand collection of data or primary research. Primary research tools involve surveys, interviews, focus groups, business experiments, direct observations, etc. Since company has thousands of customers and followers in the social media, primary research is recommended for confirmatory purpose. The probable segments the company need to focus are age groups between 18 to 35 years, upper income customers, people who holiday at adventure spots such as surfing, skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, rappelling, adventure cycling, diving, etc. , people who do wilderness or difficult research, and finally the media professionals who provide news and information on everyday basis. The company must do both secondary as well as primary research on these segments.
Develop a customer profile.
After adequate secondary research, profiling typical customer from each segment is valuable to the company for product development, planning communications and promotions, and distribution system. Customer profiles are in depth description about a typical customer. Demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information about the typical customer need to be gathered.
Demographic information includes age, gender, race, educational qualifications, marital status, parenthood, income levels, occupation, ethnicity, language, religion, etc. Psychographic information is about the unobservable and inner aspects of the target customers which include interests, beliefs, values, leisure, hobbies, lifestyle, attitudes, personality, etc. Observing and understanding customer’s action and choices is behavioral classification. Behavioral segmentation involves classifying the customers based on the usage patterns, customer’s choice and decision making processes, etc. All types of data are required for an effective customer profile. Demographic information will help to narrow down the large market and psychographic will help to reach the right customers.
Customer profiling do not stop with who the target customers are, it is also important to find out where the customers are and how to connect to them. The company needs to find out which websites the customers are visiting, which places they visit, what social networks the customers are maintaining, etc. All these information put together gives the actual profile of the typical customers. The GoPro’s products were developed based on the discovery of pain point in capturing the great moments during adventure performance. The company needs to repeat what Nick Woodman has done in 2002.
Final part of the customer profiling is the plan to monitor the changes in customer need and behaviours. It is like surfing, the company need to ride on the wave of customer wants. It is essential for the company to regularly research on the market, customer and industry trends, and the competition. The gathered information on customers and market will help in identifying changing trends and patterns. Based on this company can make possible improvement, which can aid the marketing efforts as the business penetrates into the new markets.
Today customer has the choice to seek information about a product. The company must provide information about its product to the customer in a favorable manner, so that the customer feels good about the product and the company. Positioning is what the company does in the mind of the customer about the product and the company. Positioning refers to customer perceptions about a product or its benefits in comparison with competitor’s offer. For effective positioning, GoPro must regularly analyze the customer perceptions about the products in relation to competitors’ products. Through surveys and research the value the customer attaches to the product and its features must be understood. The marketing communications must be based on the positioning and they must highlight the benefits and persuade the customers to experience the products. The GoPro brand has a good positioning in the market. It is evident in from the ‘likes’ it received in the Facebook and YouTube. The ease of use, exciting captures and easy to upload facilities may be the attributes that distinguishes GoPro’s products from competitors products. The most important feature is that customers are referring the products to their friends, which indicates the GoPro brand is well established.
Primary customers
The primary customers are people who are active and perform for personal joy in social / adventurous surroundings. The business of GoPro depends on the usage of the cameras and publication of the content. Two segments are highlighted here
- Youth aged between 18 -40
Upper middle class with income ranging $30000 to $90000
People having active life style
Individuals and families with higher education
People who believe in personal achievement and extroverts
- Media Professionals
Young media professionals between the age of 20 40 years
Professionals who work in the field and upload the content frequently
Researchers in Wilderness and those who work in difficult conditions
Professionals who value the quality of the content and not price alone
Definition of Integrated Marketing Communication
It was Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn introduced the concept of Integrated Marketing Communication in the year 1993. While introducing the concept of IMC, they persuaded to set aside the 4Ps model proposed by McCarthy’s 4Ps and to replace it with their 4Cs model. The 4Cs are consumer, cost, convenience, communication. Though all components are important, only communication is discussed here. As with other management concepts, IMC also has been defined from different perspectives. The American Association of Advertising Agencies defines IMC as a concept that acknowledges the value of a complete plan that includes strategic responsibility of each kind of communication disciplines and integrates these disciplines to present a clear, consistent and impactful communication. Currently, IMC has evolved over a period of time and has become a complex and important corporate activity. Panda. T. k., 2009, illustrates that the journey of IMC began from awareness level of integration to image level integration, then to functional integration to coordinated integration, and finally to consumer based integration to stakeholder based integration to relationship management integration.
A view point presented by Surrender and Telrandhe 2010, proposes that IMC is a promotional tool adjacent to other marketing mix components, aimed to gain advantage over competitors using highest level of consumer satisfaction through managing the right touch-points. Using outside-in thinking and appropriate data, customer insights are gained to develop a stronger brand-consumer relationship. Integrated marketing communication is considered as the voice of marketing for creation of brand awareness, information dissemination, education of the customers, and promotion of positive image of the company.
IMC Plan for the GoPro
Based on the situation analysis of GoPro Company, its competitors and the market information the following objectives of IMC are developed.
Objectives:
- Maintain the revenue growths achieved in last three years (on average 35% growth is achieved on yearly basis)
- Engage thousands of customers through social media and web site.
- Persuade and help the customers to use the cameras and products frequently (at least 300 shots per year per customer)
- Disseminate useful information about the products in an effective manner.
- Highlight the value / benefits of GoPro products in comparison to competitor’s product.
- Generate ten thousand visits per day to Facebook, YouTube and web site, and generate at least 1000 conversations.
Message content
Key messages are directed to youth (aged between 18 to 35 years), active life seekers, adventure holidayers, and professional media people. The messages must be simple, direct and inspiring statements which are easy to remember and meaningful to the customer base. The company may engage creative writers to coin the messages.
. GoPro’s viral marketing depends on the excellent content uploaded by the customers; hence the excellent content must be recognized, and rewarded on line. A simple product and accessories chart must be available to the customers to help them use the product appropriately.
Choice of Media and promotional activity
- For maintaining corporate identity for GoPro, Place GoPro logo in all promotional materials and packages
- Develop and distribute product flyers at adventure events, retail shops and product show kiosks.
- Design GoPro product brochures (print and digital) for downloading and distribution by potential clients.
- Develop a public relations team, and plan publicity campaigns
- Organize adventure events that compliments the use of the GoPro cameras current
- Periodically write blogs, posts, news releases and product feature stories for the appropriate media.
- Write letters / emails to the influencers in the industry
- Encourage the customers to upload the content and publish their testimonials for public view
- Create and circulate a bi-monthly news letter.
- Develop a robust and attractive website for online marketing with SEO
- Maintain a strong presence in Facebook, YouTube, Pintrest, Twitter, etc.
- Create a 60 second corporate video that quickly communicate the key messages
- Develop advertisement plans and schedules for local and international media
- Develop a sales team for direct selling to retailers and other outlets
Promotional Budget
For meeting the objectives mentioned earlier, and the implementation of the IMC plan requires budgets and resources. The budget for the above mentioned IMC plan was determined by taking a percentage of the revenues of GoPro in the last year. The total revenues for the year 2013 were about $950 million. Two percent of the revenues are taken as the budget for the IMC, which is about two million dollars. The IMC team must work within this budget to meet the IMC objectives.
REFERENCES
Beard, Fred, “Integrated Marketing Communications: New Role Expectations and Performance Issues in the Client-Ad Agency Relationship?” Journal of Business Research, vol.
37, (3), 1996, pp. 207-215.
Rid, M., L S., and Mavondo, F. “The relationship between IMC, Market Orientation and
Brand Orientation, Journal of Advertising, Vol.34 No.4, 2005, pp.11-23.
Panda, T.K., “Marketing Management”, Excel Books, New Delhi, 2003.
Kotler, P, “Marketing Management”, 11th ed., Prentice Hall/Pearson, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 2003.
Schultz, D E., Tannenbaum, S and Lauterborn, R, Integrated Marketing Communications, NTC Business Books, Chicago, IL, 1993.
www.gopro.com
