Marketing Problems and Issues of Cloon Keen Atelier - Essay Example

? Products and Services Marketing Products and Services Cloon Keen Atelier’s Problems and Issues to Be Addressed The firm’s problem is mainly threat of competition in the market place that is poised by other great competitions in the industry. The company has several rivals in the market that manufacture same products and have massive resources, great brand names and very wide distribution network compared to the Cloon Kleens.’ The company is therefore striving to gain market positioning and competitive advantage in the industry. Cloon Kleen is trying to look for cost effective ways in which it can efficiently market itself and gain competitive advantage. Differentiation has immensely helped the company in retaining its customers due to the uniqueness of their products’ scent. Cloon Kleen’s has had high number of loyal customers, which is approximately 80% due to the uniqueness of their products to their customers who are majorly women of age between 25 and 50. The company has also adopted their own line of body care products due to high differentiation strategy they employee in their products. Cloon Keen uses three different perfumes to create fragrances which are of very high quality and do have authentic aroma that do not smell strange. The company uses print media which shows colored picture of their products thus promoting the products. A fashion magazine which adds value to the products by associating it with other fashion designs advertised in the same magazine. The company has adopted branding and packaging of its kind that is very attractive to their customers. The branding is unique and very beautiful thus attracting many customers especially women who are greatly attracted by colors. The company also believes in verbal interaction with their customers that help them improve on the quality of their products through their customers’ suggestion. The company has also used the people’s taste and aspirations in designing their products so as to attract more customers (Torres 2009, p. 505-510). Conformity with Current Consumer and Industry Trend The industry manufactures very nice scented candles and body products, which conform to the consumers demand. Company has well combined smell touch and sight which is attractive to their customers who love feel that sweet fragrance at their homes is their style. How it should Be Positioned Relative to Pertinent Competitors The company should further diversify in manufacturing more products with variety of attractive fragrance combined with beautiful packaging and marketing to gain competitive advantage. Changes Required For a Better Positioning The company should embark on thorough marketing, promotion and slightly lower the prices of their products to gain competitive advantage. The company may as well use application or use strategy by manufacturing different products for different occasions and times such as romantic scented candles for lovebirds’ gifts and cool scented products for summer seasons. Another great strategy is connecting the products with the users such as classic scented products for the rich. It is also important to design products that are consumer friendly by having consumer in mind. What Is Lifestyle Brand? A lifestyle brand is a brand that tends to symbolize itself with a particular grouping or society for marketing purposes. This strategy should not be adopted since it may hinder other potential consumers who are not incorporated in the group shun from buying the products. Electronic Media in Promotion Electronic media such as website blogging and other social media should be used to promote and market both the company and the products due to their ability to reach many people at the shortest time possible. The firm should be able to communicate with its customers freely and persuade them to buy their products, which should be well displayed on the firm’s electronic sites. The will further receive feedback from their customers via the electronic media which they will use in improving the product (Albarran 2012, p.199-203). Theory Questions Branding Brand uniqueness is very important as it affects the demand and the overall operations of the firm and its products. A strong branding acts more than marketing strategies since it can make the organization’s goal be echoed in different markets as it is the combined effect of all the image elements of the advertising strategy. Branding makes the product different and unique especially due in terms of content and design. A great branding gives a nice first impression combined with urge to be connected with the product. Branding has made Coca-Cola remain on top of the soft drink industry for a long time (Tybout & Calder 2010, p. 138-139). Branding Strategies and Examples There are numerous strategies used in branding depending on the intention of the business or the objective of branding. Branding can either be aimed at promoting difference of kind or difference of degree. Any company that would want to prevent offensive moves by its competitors may use defensive strategy so that it can retain its market share like Coca-Cola Company. However, a good branding strategy should confirm a company’s credibility, motivate the buyer, increase customer loyalty, and be precise to attract many customers (Kapferer 2008, p. 372). Product Life Cycle Source: (Bhasin 2011) ‘Product Life Cycle,’ Product life cycle undergo four stages such as introduction stage, growth, maturity and decline stage where different actions need to be taken to allow sustainability of the product. Nonetheless, there exist some products that do not undergo the full product life cycles which are fashion, fad and style that need to be properly managed for the company to ensure sustainability of their product as well as increasing their product’s market share. Style represents the way in which a product is introduced in the market. Styles are never permanent but short lived such as the current digital cameras which had a unique technological style thus reducing the use of films. The styles keep on changing since an exit of one style is accompanied with a simultaneous introduction of another new style thus making the shape of a style life cycle look like a wave. The management should be able to foresee future market styles in order to maintain their market share. (Hesselbach & Herrmann 2011, P.40). Fad is a product that appears in the market for a short while as it is generated by hype. Due to its short life, the product’s sales goes high very fast making a curve with a very sharp point interpreting the high sales. Although the product may follow the standard life cycle, it would record an unusual high peak in sales. Fashion is an existing tendency in a particular area which can have a long or a short life cycle such as a clothing fashion which can last for s short period of time followed by a rapid decline in the product life cycle as others may turn slowly. The management should be aware of the fashion trends in order to cope with the market. Characteristics of Services Services such as saloon have got four characteristics namely intangibility, perishability, variability, and inseparability that distinguish them from goods. Intangibility of service is because it cannot be seen or tasted such as teaching thus making it hard to market since its value cannot be quantified hence it is important to consider other attributes such as qualification of the service provider. The marketer should try to increase the service tangibility by using models. Inseparability is because it is produced and consumed at the same time thus making the service provider an integral part of the service. Both the service provider and the client participate and this benefits the service marketers. The marketer should be highly skilled to prove their marketing ability while marketing a particular service (Beamish & Ashford 2005, p.256) Another characteristic of services is invariability that implies that service is produced and used concurrently in the presence of the parties involved. Service cannot be repeated and this creates certainty about their uniformity hence the need for training of workers and ensuring customer fulfillment and response. Perishability is the final characteristic of service that justifies the inability of not storing services such as a seat in the bus. The marketer should make use of the capacity without interfering with the demand quality (Lamb, Hair & McDaniel 2011, p. 187-188). Works Cited Albarran, B 2012, Management Of Electronic And Digital Media. Wadsworth Pub Co. Beamish, K., & Ashford, R 2005, Cim Coursebook 05/06 Marketing Planning, Burlington, Elsevier. Bhasin, H 2011, ‘Product Life Cycle,’ Marketing91.Com, Retrieved 6 Apr 2013, . Hesselbach, J, & Herrmann, C 2011, Functional Thinking For Value Creation Proceedings Of The 3rd Cirp International Conference On Industrial Product Service Systems, Technische Universita?T Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany, May 5th - 6th, 2011. Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Kapferer, J 2008, The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term. London, Kogan Page Lamb, C, W, Hair, J, F, & Mcdaniel, C 2011, Mktg5: Student Edition. Mason, Oh, South-Western Cengage Learning. Torres, A, M 2009, ‘Cloon Keen Atelier: Scent For A Premium Position,’ Marketing Intelligence & Planning 27 (4) 503-515, Retrieved 6 Apr 2013, . Tybout, A, M & Calder, B, J 2010, Kellogg On Marketing. Hoboken, Nj, J, Wiley & Sons. Read More