This is the slideshow of my group’s solution to Harley’s problem with their aging customer-base.
My group and I primarily used Google documents for calibration. Their real-time updates of the documents made it very easy because everyone was able to work on the slide presentation at the same time.
Company, Brand, Product
The first advertisement shown here is an advertisement for the new video game release — Call of Duty: Black Ops. The game is one of many in the Call of Duty series. It is sold for many platforms such as the: PC, Xbox360, PlayStation3, and Nintento Wii. Call of Duty: Black Ops is developed by the video game engineering corporation Treyarch. Treyarch isn’t a very widely known company and doesn’t have vast brand loyalty in and of itself; however, their past games have led them to great success. Treyarch is usually commissioned by an outside game-developer to make sequel or follow-up games.
The Call of Duty series itself is the brand. There are millions of loyal customers that will buy every single one of the games in the series and will prefer this or even refuse to similar purchase games from similar brands — such as Medal of Honor or Halo.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is a first-person-shooter video game that is centered upon modern day weaponry and tactics. The focus of the game is on its online multiplayer capabilities. The game encourages intense online competition.
Target Audience
The target audience of this particular advertisement is intentionally broad. Treyarch is using a combined target market approach. However, even saying that might be considered a bit of stretch. Originally, the Call of Duty series may have been targeted at young adolescent males; however, in this advertisement they are . In actuality, the entire purpose of the advertisement is to show that their product, Black Ops, isn’t targeted to any one group of people but can be enjoyed by almost everyone. However, of this broad market approach — one group in particular seem to stand out.
According to the PRIZM market segmentation system, this group is known as the young influentials. This group represents 1.46% of U. S. households. They are renters that have midscale income and suburban “urbanicity.” This group is used to describe the “younger, middle-class singles and couples who are more preoccupied with balancing work and leisure pursuits.” This fits in perfectly with the advertisement because many of the characters depicted are either in the middle of performing job functions, or are in their profession’s attire.
Treyarch positioned their advertisement to appeal to a large variety of groups — from teenage girls to professional basketball players and everything in-between. It’s risky for most companies and products to try to appeal to such a large target audience; however, Treyarch does it well by focusing on humor and game playability. Treyarch appeals more to the entire product-market — all those interested in the video game market. Their wide-angle marketing approach is appropriate because of the wide interest in their game. You can see how vast interest in Black Ops spans by clicking here. As you can see, interest in black ops spans across the nation and even the world — with large interest in the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico.
Positioning and Differentiation
In promoting Black Ops, Treyarch sought to reposition their product in a way that other Call of Duty products never had. They tried to reposition their product as being more accessible to casual gamers than previously conceived. Many people viewed Call of Duty as being a game more for serious gamers. According to the book, “firms that have differentiated their marketing mixes may favor mass selling because they have something to talk about.” This seems to be the case for the Call of Duty series — because their product has such brand loyalty and differentiation.
It was this positioning that really differentiated their product from other first-person-shooters such as Halo or Medal of Honor. Halo and Medal of Honor advertisement and promotion focused only on the game-play and features of the game — neglecting to involve their audience directly. Here is a Halo Reach advertisement.
As one can see, it focuses far more on the game itself than those playing it.
AIDA
Call of Duty: Black Ops is in the market growth stage. While the Call of Duty franchise might be considered to be in market maturity with other game series such as Halo and Medal of Honor — Black Ops itself remains in market growth. There is selective demand for Call of Duty products as they have a great brand loyalty. Since they already have such loyalty and awareness, this advertisement might almost be considered a reminder-type advertisement.
The adoption curve played a huge role in how Treyarch sought to promote the product. Call of Duty is already established and early adopters or even the early majority have acted as opinion leaders and promoted the product by word of mouth. People already know what they are getting when they purchase a Call of Duty game. Thus, Treyarch is advertising to a broader target audience and emphasizing playability. Treyarch is taking this approach to advertising because of how promotion changes over the life cycle of a product. In this particular advertisement Treyarch is advertising to those in the awareness step. It is letting the customer know about the product, but it lacks details so the customer might not even know what it does or anything about the game-play.
AIDA Model
Attention: The advertisement commands attention by putting every-day people (and even celebrities) in ridiculous war situations.
Interest: The advertisement holds interest by constantly building up to funnier and more ridiculous situations.
Desire: The advertisement arouses desire through the use of humor and also through connecting with the audience by portraying a wide variety of people involved in the war situation.
Action: The desired action that the advertisement wants to accomplish to get people to purchase the product.
Company, Brand, Product
In this instance, the company, brand, and product are all the same — Heineken.
While Heineken does offer a few varieties of beer, this advertisement doesn’t single any one product out for promotion.
Target Audience
The target audience for this Heineken advertisement is males from ages 21 to 40. They are targeting this audience by using clever and suggestive imagery. Looked at abstractly, the two bottles resemble a portion of the female figure. It’s been said time and time again: “Sex Sells.” Heineken is pursuing this viewpoint in a tasteful and clever manner. This study shows some statistics on Heiniken’s target audience. Although the numbers might seem to flow together into a ridiculous chart of nonsense — it does attest to some characteristics of this demographic — such as income and ambition.
According to the PRIZM market segmentation system, this market segment would be called the up-and-comers. This group represents approxomitely 1.3% of U.S. households. In the PRIZM system, this segment is described as: ”…a stopover for younger, upper-mid singles before they marry, have families, and establish more deskbound lifestyles. Found in second-tier cities, these mobile twentysomethings include a disproportionate number of recent college graduates who are into athletic activities, the latest technology, and nightlife entertainment.” They have upper-mid income and have college-level education.
Positioning and Differentiation
Heineken is positioning their product as being sexy, young, and tempting. As in other Heineken advertisements, they are trying to portray their product as being a tool to help attract women. In essence, they are trying to add perceived value to their product beyond the physical attributes — the taste of their beer. This is a very different positioning approach than other competitors in the industry, who stress their beer’s taste and physical attributes — such as calories. Here is an ad by Samuel Adams and shows you how they position their product.
As opposed to Samuel Adams, Heiniken differentiates their beer from other beers on the market by stressing less on taste and more on the experience of drinking it.
AIDA
Heineken is in the market maturity stage. The beer industry has been around for centuries and competition is stiff. Companies are seeking out any way possible to differentiate their product from their competitors. Heineken is even going as far as using sex in their advertising to differentiate their beer. In general, the market is so mature that the total dollars that these corporations devote is immense. As the market is so mature, the adoption curve plays less of an important role. Early adopters play far less important a role on the product because it has been around for so long. AIDA applies to this advertisement in the following way:
AIDA MODEL
Attention: It grabs attention because at first glance it looks like womens’ legs.
Interest: After the audience is drawn in with the image of legs, they are hit with the “Bottoms Up” pun — which holds their interest.
Desire: Heineken’s hope is that the advertisement will spark desire to drink the product, or maybe to remind the audience that the product is a good choice when wanting to have a fun time.
Action: Heineken’s desired action would be for the audience to buy their beer, or perhaps to show a friend the clever advertisement.
Tom Owen, football enthusiast (what we “yanks” would call soccer), has been in a close personal relationship with the game his entire life. Owen came to the United States from the U.K. in 1998 on a soccer scholarship. After graduating, his passion and desire for teaching the game to youth naturally has led him into the creation of a successful training camp. His Soccer Academy – MANU – has had great success in his Colorado hometown of Fort Collins. As we delve into MANU we will look at many different factors – eventually advising Tom Owen on what his next actions in the market should be.
Using the S.W.O.T. (Strengths; Weaknesses; Opportunities; Threats) analysis of the MANU Soccer Academy will help us give Tom Owen advice on how to focus on a strategy that takes advantage of the Academy’s strengths and opportunities while at the same time avoiding its weaknesses and threats to its success (Basic Marketing p51).
S.W.O.T. Analysis:
Strengths:
The most noteworthy strength MANU Soccer Academy lies in their human capital – their instructors. Tom Owen himself has a natural talent for coaching, is very knowledgeable about the game of soccer, is charismatic, and has an easy-going personality that kids enjoy in an instructor. Tom Owen has been hiring instructors with similar qualities, thus creating a workforce that gives him a good competitive advantage and helps differentiate MANU’s services from other groups without such quality instructors.
Another strength that MANU has is its market penetration in Fort Collins – population 110,000. Owen estimates that almost all competitive soccer players age 11 to 14 are aware of his program in the Fort Collins area.
Opportunites:
The external opportunities for MANU are extensive. Most notable is in market development. Soccer is the largest participation sport for kids and Fort Collins is a soccer “hotbed.” There are also several cities (Loveland, Greeley, and Longmont) totaling a population of about 220,000 people within 25 miles of Fort Collins that have very limited soccer training camps currently. These are markets that would offer low levels of competition with MANU.
Weaknesses:
MANU’s greatest weakness is its dependence on Tom Owen for the leading and execution of duties in its task environment. This makes it more difficult to expand into distant markets because Owen can only be in one place at a time.
Threats:
Fortunately, because of MANU’s niche market in their current location, their external threats are somewhat limited. Most of MANU’s threats come from the external environment such as the economic environment. Parents may regard soccer camp as a relatively elastic service and be willing to go without it because of the economic downturn and growing unemployment.
The emergence of new competition is another possible threat that MANU could face. MANU needs to be on its toes and be aware of emerging soccer training programs.
S.W.O.T. Conclusion
This S.W.O.T. analysis gives us a nice overview for the direction MANU Soccer Academy should be heading in. At a quick glance it seems MANU is well suited for expansion and growth.
We’ll organize some more analysis into subcategories to further pinpoint some strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Macroenvironment Situation
The main threats and impacts from the macroenvironment lie in the economic environment. The United States economy is currently in a recession. Colorado has a rate of 8.2 percent unemployment which is 21/50 in the United States.
Market Situation
About 90 percent of MANU’s customers live in Fort Collins. Fort Collins has a population of 110,000. Loveland is a city about 25 miles from Fort Collins. Loveland has a population of approx. 60,000. Greeley and Longmont are about 25 miles away by interstate highway, each with a population of about 80,000.
Competitive Situation
There is relatively low direct competition for MANU in Fort Collins. There are even less developed programs in the surrounding cities of Loveland, Greeley, and Longmont.
Target Buyer or End User Situation
The target buyer for the services that MANU provides is competitive soccer players ages 11 to 14. However, the ultimate buyer is the mother of the soccer player. One must market to both mother and child.
Tom Owen knows he wants to grow his business, but he wonders the best method for accomplishing this goal. Tom listed a few of his thoughts.
1) His current customer retention rate is pretty high: about 80 percent. However, when the kids reach 14 or 15 years old, other high school sports and activities make them less interested in extra soccer training. One option is to try to increase retention by developing programs targeted at kids over 14.
2) Another option is to develop a marketing strategy that would encourage his current customers to buy more. He wonders if they have other needs that he might be able to serve.
3) Owen could try to grow the business by entering new markets and acquiring new customers. His market penetration with kids 6 to 9 is still quite modest. He might develop new programs to better meet this group’s needs.
4) Another new market option would be to serve more kids from Loveland, Longmont, and Greeley.
In summary, Tom wants to increase sales and profit by either changing or offering new products to meet the needs of different customers, or by keeping his product as is and enter new geographic markets.
I agree with Tom on his fourth option. MANU Soccer Academy should concentrate on market development. MANU Soccer Academy would likely see the best ROI by expanding to the nearby cities of Loveland, Longmont, and Greeley. Changing or altering the product that MANU offers would likely be unnecessary.
There are many reasons that Owen and MANU should concentrate on market development in Loveland, Longmont, and Greeley. Here is some rationale for concentrating on market development:
1) They already have good market penetration in their current market. Spending resources getting that “last bit” of market share in their current location would not be as profitable as entering into new markets.
2) No need to reinvent the product or divert focus to new products. MANU has a product they know works and they are very efficient at producing. Tom Owen knows he and his staff is well suited to teach 11 to 14 year old players. By concentrating on this target market they eliminate the risk associated with offering a new altered service. There is also no diversion of focus from their intended target market of 11 to 14 year-old competitive soccer players.
3) Low competition in Loveland, Longmont, and Greeley. There are very little competitive barriers in these local cities because they have “very limited soccer training programs.”
4) Tom Owen can be still be involved in these Loveland, Longmont, and Greeley segments because of how local they are. Owen can still play a major role in these new markets without feeling spread too thin.
Alright, first of many videos to come! WARNING: This video might be boring. It does, however, give give you an overview of my goals, my knowledge, and the sound of my voice. I also recommend right clicking the video and “watch on youtube” and then changing it to a higher resolution so you can see what is going on. Another note: audio problem from 5:20-5:40 of the video.
Much love, Englund
Hey! The blog is up. I have great ideas and high hopes. If my college schedule permits me time, what I want to do with this blog is devote much of it to teaching Photoshop to people in business professions — not just design fields. I’m going to post a video — hopefully in the next week — that will kind of give you a more detailed introduction of my ideas, goals, and methods. You can check out my “About Me” for a bit more info. For now, here is a random yet highly entertaining video from Youtube.
Thanks, Arthur!
