Buyer Behaviour and Marketing Communications - Business Plan Example

1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Lip contouring has become a global celebrity lead trend hailed the world over and lip contour kits have been met with enormous enthusiasm. ‘Duck Face’ Lip Contour Kit is a brand new luxury cosmetic fashion product that is aimed to be introduced to the UK market due to the fact that the concept of lip contouring has not been exploited in UK and huge market potential has been identified for the product. The product is vital for the women that want to transform their physical appearance via luscious, full lips achieving a ‘camera -ready celebrity look’, but without cosmetic surgery or lip fillers. The target market for this product would be women that are aged 16-35 years who are city dwellers, very conscious about their appearance, follow the latest trends and celebrities, are socially active and technologically progressive. Therefore, this paper will utilise the three stage contingency operant learning theory to create a marketing communication plan that will be used to launch ‘Duck Face Lip Contour Kit’ in the UK market by July 2017. The product background, market analysis, product lifecycle, marketing objectives and goals, campaign positioning statement, rationale for campaign design (conceptual framework), communication campaign design (message and media), campaign design and message, plan for implementation, and budget will be analysed.

1.1 THE PRODUCT

The term ‘Duck Face’ is used to denote the signature camera ready pout popularised globally over social media by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian in her famous ‘selfies’. Following the advent of lip fillers and other cosmetic surgical procedures by celebrities and the image of a beautiful woman being established as having full, luscious lips, the concept of lip contouring kits produce a similar effect in creating ‘photo-ready celebrity beauty’. The ‘Duck Face Lip Contour Kit’ is riding on this trend and aims to sell this much desired ‘photo-ready celebrity beauty’ to modern, technologically progressive, sociable, appearance conscious women. The product slogan ‘better than fake lips’ indicates the the lip contour kits are vital in the cosmetic industry since they would allow women to achieve full, perfectly shaped and coloured lips providing an alternative to cosmetic surgical procedures such as lip fillers. Duck Face Lip Contour Kit aims to empower women making them feel beautiful and thereby raising their self-esteem, self-confidence and social acceptance and popularity. The kit contains a liquid lipstick, a lip-liner and an instruction kit on lip contouring. The distinguishing feature of this product is the step by step guided 3-piece transformative lip contour kit which will be the first of its kind in the UK. It’s premium price of £20 bears parity with its American counterparts and is according to the skimming pricing strategy given initiators are less price sensitive and more focused on quality. As a high quality branded masstige luxury product it is distinguished from drugstore brands, accordingly it will be retailed in Department Stores across the UK, starting in London..

1.2 MARKET ANALYSIS

LIP CONTOUR KIT MACRO ENVIRONMENT

It is difficult to design a marketing communication plan without considering the external business environment. Analysis of external environment will determine whether the marketing campaign will be successful, since it has the capability of creating and eliminating opportunities (Kotler, 2010). All the uncertainties that may arise during the marketing campaign can be eliminated. The major external environmental that might affect Duck Face Lip Contour Kit are presented below.

1.3 INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

The UK beauty business is huge, with employment opportunities of over a million people, which contributes billions to the growth of the economy (Raconteur, 2014). The UK cosmetic industry grows at the rate of 5% annually, especially the premium category. In 2013, UK consumers spent £8.9 billion on beauty products, with 2017 sales projected targeted to hit £10 billion (Mathews, 2013).

Figure 1: The UK beauty market statistics overview (Mathews, 2013).

The figure below shows the demographic of women who used lip gloss and lipstick in the UK in 2004, totaling to 5.4 million people indicating it is a highly viable market.

Source: http://www.statista.com/statistics/302659/lipstick-lipgloss-usage-frequency-in-the-uk/

1.4 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

As it has been established that there are no other lip contour kits in the UK market Duck Face Lip Contour Kit will indirectly compete with lip products from luxury cosmetic brands such as Chanel, Estee Lauder, Bobby Brown, Mac, Charlotte Tilbury, Marc Jacobs, NARS and Urban Decay. Although Duck Face Lip Contour Kit is distinguished from the offerings of these companies, it would be prudent to note that they are substitute products that can adversely affect Duck Face Lip Contour Kit’s market share.

Source: Euromoniter (2015)

2.0 DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PRODUCT

The 3-piece Duck Face Lip Contour Kit is differentiated in the British cosmetic industry as the first of its kind in the UK compared to other lip products by competing established brands due to its unique function and components. This is key to driving meaningful sales as it has delved into creating a new category or sub category with rare expectations (Aaker, 2012, p 46). It does not sell a mere piece of cosmetic merchandise, but guides the consumer through an entire transformative look. Women will have the opportunity to own a product that is practical, informative and easy to use (Cash et al., 1989) in achieving the desired ‘photo-ready celebrity look’. However, introduction and manufacture of a new branded product is risky especially due to the fact that the effort needed is huge in developing customer awareness, attitudes and perception (Jobber and Fiona, 2013).

The three stages of Duck Face Lip Contour Kit

• The core product is the transformed ‘photo ready celebrity look’, increased attractiveness, luscious enhanced lips, beauty, practicality, convenience, alternative to cosmetic surgical lip fillers.
• The actual product includes aspects such as the high quality lip liner, liquid lipstick, contouring instruction guide, selection of 5 colours, brand name and packaging.
• Augmented product includes the customer service, delivery, warranty and retail space.

3.0 PRODUCT LIFECYCLE

Due to the fact that Duck Face Lip Contour Kit is at its introduction stage in UK, the main focus of the campaign will be on building brand awareness, need recognition and driving sales. Therefore, the strategy applied will include sales promotion, public relations and advertising.

3.1 PRIMARY RESEARCH

To determine the product viability, a focus group research was held amongst 10 females ageing from 16-50. The interview mainly focused on the problem that the challenges that females experience with their physical facial appearance. Questions were based on 1) facial insecurities- and what they would change 2) Benefits of beauty 3)Sources of beauty inspiration and trends 4) What they want in a lip kit. The result revealed that:

• The majority were insecure about their lips, wanting bigger more even lips
• Unanimously said beauty or feeling attractive enhances self confidence and social acceptance
• Celebrities in Hollywood sourced as beauty trend inspiration which they followed on social media and mainstream media
• Cited lip contouring as a beauty trend
• They would want a kit that guides them on creating a ‘celebrity look’ makes thin lips appear full and plump, correct uneven lip colour
• Wanted an innovative high quality product from a department store and willing to pay premium price for such an investment

3.2 SECONDARY RESEARCH

The insights provided by the primary research were consolidated by market research from Mintel and Euromonitor which concluded that:

• Most females are finding it difficult to find a suitable product to achieve the lips they desire (Mintel, 2014)
• Lip contour kits can be very useful is shaping the lips and enhancing its beauty without going for surgery (Euromonitor, 2015)
• Lip contour kits are very effective improving a woman’s confidence (Mintel, 2015).
• Lip contouring kits are practical and have the propensity of making facial contouring easy at home (Mintel, 2014).

3.3 ANALYSIS OF THE CONSUMER PRODUCT RELATIONSHIP

Duck Face lip contour kit is defined as a masstige luxury product referring to luxury for the masses (Agenceluxury, 2015). Beauty at Any Cost (2008) indicated that over $7 billion is spent each year on cosmetics. Results from the primary and secondary research suggests that consumers choose to purchase new products based on the perceived benefits and utility value. Michael et al. (2000) found that the consumers choose to purchase products based on the value and utility derived from consumption of such products. Utility preference is a primary attribute of evaluation when determining the products to purchase. The major drive for purchase of the lip contouring kit in the UK market is related to esteem needs and product functionality. Consumers are interested in enhancing their looks and looking like celebrities by changing the shape of their facial features. Making the lips appear fuller and larger is a beauty aspect that is highly related to esteem issues..

The main purpose of the FCB grid is to give an insight into the consumer-product relationship and provide direction on how a marketing communication plan should be approached. The Duck Face Lip Contour Kit falls into the affective (psychological) and informative (rational) quadrant of the Vaughn’s (1980) FCB grid. As such the communication campaign will touch on the informative quadrant given the practicality of the product in providing guidance to producing cosmetic surgery-like effects and a transformed look. However, since the kit is primarily focused on transforming women and making them feel more beautiful and thereby raising their self-confidence the affective quadrant will be utilized primarily to drive the campaign. Blending affective and informative quadrants will allow the campaign to appeal to both the rational and psychological purchase motives of the target market in purchasing a product that is value for money or an investment.

Source – (Vaughn, 1980)

3.4 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR CLASS (BEHAVIOURAL PERSPECTIVE MODEL)

Duck Face Lip Contour Kit as a luxury cosmetic product in the introduction stage of the growth cycle belongs in the accomplishment class, whose purchase motives are influenced by their social and economic achievement (Foxall, 1993). As such conveying the psychological and rational benefits of the product are necessary to appeal to this class of consumer requiring high hedonic reinforcement and high informational reinforcement. The aforesaid will be necessary to shift the product from hedonistic pleasure to accomplishment.

Foxall (1993)

Foxall (1993)

The 8 stage contingency model detailed below conveys the integrative potential of the Buyer Perspective Model in placing the luxury Duck Face Lip Contour Kit as a ‘Fulfillment Good’ with an effective marketing communications campaign conveying the rational and psychological benefits of the product via hedonic and informative reinforcement (Foxall, 1993).

3.5 MARKET SEGMENTATION

In order to discern the target market for the Duck Face Lip Contour Kit market segmentation will be carried out. The segment chosen as the target market will then be analysed by geographical, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral dimensions. This will enable maximum effectiveness and efficiency in allocating the budget and devising a marketing communications message and campaign in customizing it to the specific target market.

Source (Euromonitor, 2015)

From the above analysis the target market that was identified as the most valuable and viable for the Duck Face Lip Contour Kit are the women who are aged between the ages of 26-35 years. The importance of segmenting the market is so as to ensure the product satisfies the target markets needs and wants (Pick and Broderick, 2005). After identification and profiling of the target audience the message may be communicated in the most effective and persuasive manner by adapting to the needs, wants, and values of the of the target audience (Kotler and Keller, 2009).

4.0 MARKETING OBJECTIVES AND GOALS

OBJECTIVES

5.0 CAMPAIGN POSITIONING STATEMENT

In 3 months, aim to ensure 30% of the target population, a woman aged between 25-35 years are aware, informed and engaged with the Duck Face Lip Contour Kit brand. This will create need recognition, drive sales and enhance brand loyalty.

5.1 RATIONALE FOR CAMPAIGN DESIGN (conceptual framework)

OPERANT CONDITIONING

Operant conditioning was founded by B. F. Skinner, a renowned psychologist who argued that learning of behaviour takes place through rewarding and punishing certain behaviours (Solomon, 2002). In this case, an association is made between the behaviour and its consequence, giving rise to positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement involves strengthening a certain behaviour by rewarding it, while negative reinforcement aims to punish an outcome following display of a certain behaviour. As such, both positive and negative reinforcers are used to increase the probability that a behaviour will be repeated, thereby shaping behaviour.

According to Sen and Lerman (2007), operant conditioning is associated with a restricted form of learning where human experiences produce new reactions in form of behaviour when they are exposed to special stimulation and environmentally-produced coupling. Liu (2003) suggested that operant learning is associated with attitude change in human beings, thereby helping generate the desired behaviour. The product attitude helps understand the consumers better, making the product (stimulus) as fundamental marketing strategy directly linked to purchase intention.

Despite the effectiveness of theory of operant conditioning in explaining how learning occurs, it has been criticised for its inadequacy in accounting for cognition, associated with learning of behaviours that are not directly observable (McLeod, 2008). The theory has also been criticised for being superficial in changing behaviour without altering its source. The technique has also been criticised of failure to account for behaviour change in complex situations such as character disorders, generalised anxiety and deep-seated depression (Dai and Sternberg, 2004).

5.2 APPLICATION OF OPERANT CONDITIONING TO DUCK FACE LIP CONTOUR KIT’S CAMPAIGN

The rationale for the communications campaign design will be based on operant conditioning given the polarity in the consequences of using the product versus not using the product. Bush (2006) suggests that operant conditioning mainly focuses on the directly observable features with the view that changing the perception of the customers is driven by the learning process, which is an outcome of stimulus conditions and the consequent responses. Given that the contouring kit is a cosmetic element highly popularised in the US market but not in the UK, operant conditioning will be instrumental to the effectiveness of this campaign on the target market in the UK as it is highly dependent on learning and behaviour change (Fill, 2003). Positive reinforcement in the campaign will be applied through videos and pictures that show women using Duck Face Lip Contour Kit brand achieve celebrity looks, increased self confidence and receiving social acceptance and greater popularity while negative reinforcement will be applied in the campaign through videos and pictures that showcase women who do not use Duck Face Lip Contour Kit brand with bad lips all alone and socially shunned.

In order for learning of the benefits of lip contouring kit to occur in the target UK market, there is need to establish a new behaviour by reinforcing successive approximations to it. This is done by pairing the lip contouring kit with desirable, positive stimuli that would promote the desired behaviour in purchasing the products. The associative purchase behaviour would then be reinforced through continued exposure to the benefits of the products (enhanced beauty, self confidence, increased attention ), which would be delivered after a specified length of time since the first time (Byrnes, 2001). Such positive reinforcement helps in shaping the behaviour of the target audience in the purchase of the product.

6.0 COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN DESIGN

The rationale for the application of operant conditioning in generating associative behaviour in the target audience is based on the fact that learning in target buyer behaviour can be achieved through association. As such, the marketing campaign for Duck Face Lip Contour Kit will utilise the psychoanalytic and conditioning marketing techniques for purposes of connecting to the functional needs of the target market and appealing to their unconscious emotions. Various communication tools will be utilised including video advertisements, print advertisements, billboards and social media. Taking into account operant conditioning, these will contrast an image of a girl who does not use the product as being unattractive, socially awkward and alone, with an image of girl who uses Duck Face Lip Contour Kit and is transformed achieving a a photo-ready celebrity look and becomes beautiful, self-confident and popular, receiving celebrity-like attention, or looking ready for it. The 3 kit product will be super-imposed with the cursory instructions ‘line, fill, blend’ and the campaign slogan ‘better than fake lips’. See Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 for samples.

The message is affective (psychological) and rational (informative) in nature and uses negative reinforcement depicting the undesirable consequences of not using the product, and contrasts it with the latter positive consequences of using the Duck Face Lip Contour Kit as positive reinforcement, providing motivation to avoid the consequences of not using the product.

6.1 THE MARKETING MIX

Considering the consumer-product relationship and the fact the product is still at the introduction stage the 3 elements of the marketing communication mix- advertising, public relations and sales promotion will be utilised and integrated appropriately to ensure effectiveness of the communication campaign.

6.2 COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN DESIGN (MEDIA AND MESSAGE)

7.0 PLAN FOR IMPLEMENTATION

The campaign would run for 6 months from July 2017 to January 2018 for 2 reasons. Firstly, this coincides with advertising for London Fashion Week taking place in September 2017 for which Duck Face Lip Contour is a sponsor, creating awareness and favourable associations among the target market in line with Objectives A and C. Secondly, this period covers the Christmas holidays, which has many events, parties and celebrations where people need to look good and there is a rise in shoppoing and gifting in this period creating an opportunity for Duck Face Lip Contour Kit to carry out sales promotion and free make up tutorials in line with objectives D and B.

The table below details how the marketing mix will be employed in 3 phases, with phase 1 from 31st July 2017- 31st September 2017, phase 2 from 31st September to 31st October, and phase 3 from 31st October to 1st December. The campaign is adopting a classic awareness, information, reinforcement approach in bringing about a change in consumer behaviour. Whereby, media meant to raise awareness will be deployed first to aid with problem recognition. This is will be supported by the information phase once there is motivation to solve the problem and a behavioural change is impending. Adoption of behaviour will be consolidated in the reinforcement stage.

8.0 BUDGET

The budget for the campaign is compiled according to the affordable budget method, which has been criticised for not having a definite objective and may over or underspend, yet is acceptable for a brand new product in the introduction stage as.

Source: Mintel, (2015)

9.0 EVALUATION

Pre-testing

Before the commencement of the campaign, a focus group compromising of 150 people from London will be utilised in a pilot study to test the effectiveness of the marketing communications campaign design, message and media. The feedback from the study will be used to review and revise the campaign design to ensure it fits the marketing goals and objectives of Duck Face Lip Contour Kit.

Post-testing

Another focus group research will be carried out to test the perception of the customers towards the product in terms of recall and brand awareness. These results and sales performance will be measured against the campaign objectives. The results from the study will be used as the foundation for rolling out the next Duck Face Lip Contour Kit marketing campaign.