Question

You are the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for a consumer products company. Your company just launched a new brand of hair care products targeted at young girls between the ages of 14 – 19. You spent millions of dollars researching the habits of girls in this age bracket, what is important to them about making their hair care product decisions and the views of competing products and are confident that, with the right IMC plan, the new line will be very successful.

While you believe that your product offers features that its competitors do not, you also realize that this range of products is saturated with various options, including those targeted in the same way. You need to ensure that your IMC expenses are used in the wisest way possible.

Here is a summary of the marketing research finding regarding IMC for hair care products. Girls in this age bracket report the following:

80% rely on advice or information from a trusted friend in order to try a new product;

When asked about the trusted friend respondents generally said that the person was in the similar age group;

50% say that they get information about new personal care products from reading magazines;

72% report that coupons or other discounts help ‘push them over the edge’ to try a new product;

64% say that they do not do repeat purchases of the new products that they buy.  Reasons cited were disappointment in performance, too expensive, and could not tell a difference in the results using the new product and the other products that they had been using;

78% report that packaging is important and they have to ‘like the look’ of how the product appears on the bathroom or shower shelves;

You are confident in the packaging decisions that were made as much of the marketing research budget was exploring this area as it is so important in the decisions making process;

56% of respondents say that they have a ‘better impression’ of products sold though salons as opposed to large retailers like grocery stores, Wal-Mart and Target;

43% of respondents say that they make their decisions after the first couple of uses as to whether the like the product and it was ‘worth it’’

Armed with this information you and your team need to decide how to allocate your $30 million marketing budget for this range of products. You know that you will have to present your findings to the Board of Directors as well as the Management Team so you will have clearly explain and justify your decisions.

NOTE TO STUDENTS: As you do not know the various costs of IMC tactics, please assign a percent to each IMC tool that you believe should be used. Justify your decisions. The percent should add up to 100%.

Answer 1

I am the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for a consumer products company. My company product which has been just launched a new brand of hair care products targeted at young girls between the ages of 14 – 19. We have spent the millions of dollars in researching the habits of girls in this age bracket, important factors to them about making their hair care product decisions and the views of competing products and are confident that, with the right IMC plan, the new line will be very successful.

IMC PLAN:

Steps	Budget Allocation	Reasons
Focus on the Girls age group 14 – 19 i.e. teenagers	2 Million	Personal research to market for females who uses this product and get feedback from them time to time.
Keep the advice agent who guides about the new product and his age is also between 14 to 19. Behavior should be friendlier to the girls	$ 6 million	Female agents are needed for being friendlier and tackle the customers for which they get benefits.
Newspapers are used for the advertisement which contains the young female or actor telling about the benefits of the product.	$ 3 million	The newspaper Advertisement cost includes the Actor / a female which has been paid, designing cost and Printing cost
New gift vouchers and offers would be added with the product during the particular time period.	$ 4 million	It is although done occasionally but it needs cost for vouchers like monetary vouchers, gifts price, holiday or dinner or one night stay etc. costs.
Get the feedback from the users so that improvement may be done on the product.	$ 3 million	Customer care agents are needed for this job for that they get paid. This is different from the Agents as here customer care helps the people by getting feedbacks and their complaints. They provide support for the limited time period. The hiring and recruitment cost associated with this.
Attractive packaging of the product is done.	$ 6 million	Packaging is more important as it attracts the customer by first site. Hence, it should be done in an effective way.
The Availability of the product should be on the saloons, marts, superstores, departmental stores and the retail stores so that it is easily access to the customer.	$ 2 million	The Availability of the product nearby areas needs the transportation cost associated with the product.
Free small sachets also provided with the advertisements on person.	$ 3 million	Small Sachets has been associated with the packaging cost, labeling cost, human resources cost and machinery cost.
Advertisement has been done online through social medias.	1 million	Most popular way of advertising and reaches in easy way. Requires less cost.
Total	$ 30 million