The Probable Marketing Strategies of Paint X Corporation - Case Study Example

Introduction This is a case of a paint manufacturing company known as Paint X Corporation providing world quality paints. Paints are highly specialised and innovated for indoor application providing no odour once applied. Paints are of different variants suited to adapt to various architectural styles and designs. There are many colors to choose from and with this, customers will enjoy variety of options that will meet their specifications. Paint X Corporation is located at the heart of London in England. It is an average size manufacturing plant but it can produce 3 tons of paint a day. This maximum capacity of plant production especially if the demand is high cannot completely compete with other paint producing company. This remains one of the big challenges of the company that it takes into consideration at present time. Aside from continuing innovation of its products, Paint X Corporation continuous to aim for strong market penetration. Target Market Description Although situated in London, Paint X Corporation is providing quality paints in the international market. It is in this regard that the market segmentation variables are needed to be analysed based on the international level. Paint X Corporation is supplying paints across Europe, Asia and through out the entire world. Based on this consideration, it cannot be denied that the company’s consideration of its segmentation variables is a bit complicated. Everything needs to be designed based on a universal approach on geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioralistic consideration. On geographic consideration, various competing paint manufacturers in Europe are good reasons to create more innovative quality paints. This is clear when cost of raw materials was considered in order to compete with multinational companies (Renart and Pares, 1991). The world is such a huge market. Around 6 billion people today are living in the world (Sheffield, 1998). This is a potential market considering that these people need shelter and quality way of life. Paints are part of visual effects. Visual effects are said to influence people’s perceived usability, satisfaction and pleasure (Moshagen and Thielsch, 2010). Colors from paints bring decorative appeal (Smith et al., 2003). Paints are used everywhere and this only implies higher significant acceptance of these products. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Maslow believed that humans have five hierarchies of needs and these are physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization (Robins and Timothy, 2010). In the event that the first need is substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant because Maslow believed that humans’ substantially satisfied need would no longer satisfy (Feldman, 2003). Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, it is important to consider measuring the satisfaction level of customers on specific aspect about the usage and benefits of using paints. It is through this that the company will eventually know on what hierarchy of needs are still no longer satisfied within the customers so as to make them as motivating factor to purchase its new innovative paint products. On the other hand, the basic components of marketing mix are product, place, promotion and price (Solomon and Stuart, 1997). These four are basic yet very essential components of marketing mix and they can be applied essentially applied once the motive of customers are known by using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory. From Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, it is important to consider first that customers have actually different satisfied needs. Some customers may need to be motivated based on their physiological needs. Others may need to be motivated based on their need for safety and so on. In this regard, it is good to consider integrating these ideas in the marketing mix. It is good to consider innovating products which will suit to customers’ needs and that will actually meet their needs for factors such as physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization. It is good to combine all these considerations in order to come up with products, price, place and promotion that will significantly satisfy almost all customers as possible. Paint X Corporation must design paints that are able to carry limited yet special line of colors, sizes and at the same time will satisfy its target market. Then it is a good consideration to distribute the products in a retail outlet in areas where customers live or buy. It is also of good consideration to combine both consideration of price and quality. In this regard, it will be significant to promote paints which are low priced yet with satisfactory quality. This sounds very appealing to customers and most likely if a low one-price policy without any other promotional deals will be maintained. This enhances the promotion strategy. As can be noticed, all of these strategic considerations are actually addressing customers’ physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualisation needs. For example, the marketing strategy of Paint X Corporation to produce odourless paints is a good way to attract customers who are health conscious and at the same time those who are sensitive to strong odour especially coming from paints. This product feature is actually a motivating factor for customers to significantly meet their needs for a safer and worry free application of indoor paints. On the other hand, there are also some customers who would like to have unique colours for them to be able to satisfy their creative ability. Personality concepts Man by nature is interested of himself particularly in the concept about personality, which is significantly can be defined as the concept of individuality or uniqueness of an individual among any other (Thorpe, 2007). This is a very important concept to be internalised considering that marketers will be able to formulate strategies in marketing their products and services based on how individuals buy or use products and services according to individual personality. There are different theories of personality and one of them is known as Freudian theory. Its application in marketing states that consumers are unaware of the real drive and the real reason why they are buying the products (Runyon, 1977). Aside from this theory, there are many other personality theories including trait theory. This theory states the various characteristics of an individual. In marketing application, it is important to study more about trait theory knowing that successful marketing of products and services requires in depth understanding of individual characteristics. The bottom line of these personality concepts in integrating them with marketing activity is to be able to make use of them in understanding customers based on their individuality. This is to say that based on personality concepts, none exactly is the same with each other, everyone is unique. This implies that marketing a specific product requires specific attention to every detail of personality of target customers. The case of Paint X Corporation requires creation of paint products suited to appeal to customer’s personality. This means that the manufacturing company needs to investigate further the common personality of customers when it comes to the basic or generalised consideration of the product’s designs, specifications, features and more. The consideration of what colors to produce for instance is very important as this is entirely link with customer’s personality. After all, customers choosing specific colors based on personality concepts or theories can be consciously or unconsciously influenced by their personality. Another point that needs to be substantially considered is the price. Though it is implied that the cheaper the product is, the better would be its acceptability. However, basing on personality concepts, there might be customers who are willing to pay an expensive price since part of their personality is identifying product of higher cost means high quality or standard. This is a very important subject to consider especially on the case of Paint X Corporation which is trying to specialize paint products in the market. The entire world is such a very complex market which means dealing also with complex personalities. From this information, promotion can be designed based on common personality of customers when it comes to highly specialised paints in the market. Finally, it is important to consider the channel of distribution of the paint products. This means that in order to effectively get substantial market share for a certain product, it is important to consider how exactly the product will reach to customers. Applying the concepts of personality implies that it is important to consider for instance, the convenience of acquiring the product, its payment terms and many more. Perception concepts to create a positive perception for your product/service through your marketing mix The reality in an environment is different from the meaning we created about it. The implication of this can be stated that humans tend to give meaning to their environment instead of understanding what exactly the reality of it. With this, comes the birth of the concept of perception. Perception is simply defined as the process created by humans using their senses to organize and interpret things in order to create their meaning (Feldman, 2003). From this information, it is good to consider that marketing of products to consumers is subject to perception created. Even the creation of product is an output of perceived things from the reality. This is to say that every creation of humans is a simplified output of perception. Applying this in the context of marketing is even challenging and more complex. From the basic concept of perception, everything seems to be created all from the basic understanding of human being about the environment. It is therefore implied that the created product may come up with different identification as an effect of different perception. This is to say that a single product may be perceived differently from one person to another. It is in this point that the creation of certain product needs to be carefully studied as far as creating a unified perception of it is concerned. Once the product got a uniform perception then it would not be hard to identify it as far as creating its individuality is concerned. Moreover, it is through this way that the product which got almost the same perception from customers’ perspective may not be hard to sell after all its features, advantages and benefits are well understood. The next point is about the perceived price of the product. To gain wider acceptance about the price of such product, it is important to learn how exactly customers perceived about its pricing. There might be some customers perceiving high priced products as supreme quality above any other. Some might perceive price as special as how it exactly being priced based on its quality. Some might perceive low priced product as the good thing. This information can definitely help develop strategy on how to price a certain product. The next consideration is the promotion of product. The promotion of product may gain different perception from customer’s perspectives. It is a fact that some customers might find a certain promotion not so effective compared the other promotional strategy. This reason can be simply elaborated that each individual contains specific bias or perception of everything. It is important then to create promotional strategy that may sound universal that almost everyone can create the same level of perception. It is in this point that the paint products of Paint X Corporation need to be carefully identified for the target market prior to creating a very effective marketing promotion strategy. Finally, the perceived place of distribution is very important in order to regulate the flow of the product. Some customers might perceive that those products distributed at highly commercialised and well established business outlets are superior to any other brands of the same line of products. Conclusion This paper discusses the probable marketing strategies of Paint X Corporation based on understanding the behavioral aspects of customers. This is a very important consideration knowing the fact that customers are human beings with different personalities, different needs and different perceptions of things in life. Integrating this information with the concept of marketing strategy can be a substantial step to successfully gain wider scope of market acceptance. Of course this cannot be successfully implemented without the need to consider the essential components of marketing mix: product, price, place and promotion. These are essential components of marketing mix that integrating with them the concept of customers’ personalities, needs and perceptions will make a behavioral approach of marketing strategy. At some point, this level of marketing approach is very important since marketing has become part of the social context. This level does not only focuses on economic consideration of marketing but the actual consideration of human behavior. References Feldman, R. S. (2003). Essentials of Understanding Psychology. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Moshagen, M. & Thielsch, M. T. (2010). Facets of visual aesthetics. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Renart, L. & Pares, F. (1998). Pan-European groupings: A case study in paint manufacture. European Management Journal, 9(4), 378-396. Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2010) Organizational Behavior 14th ed. New York: Prentice Hall. Runyon, K. E. (1977). Consumer behavior and the practice of marketing. Virginia: C. E. Merrill. Sheffield, J. (1998). World Population Growth and the Role of Annual Energy Use per Capita. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 59(1), 55-87. Smith, G. B., Swift, G. P. & Mronga, E. N. (2003). 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