Marketing Plan Part 1
Situation Analysis:
As the value of smartphone devices continue to grow, so will the value of protection for
those devices. In our marketing plan, we are entering the cell phone accessories market in an
attempt to develop a visually appealing, shock proof cellphone case to compete with top
competitors such as Otterbox and Trident. We saw the simple design of the industry leading
Otterbox as a flaw in their development. The consumer wishes to protect his or her cell phone
but does not wish to sacrifice image as a result. With this in mind, our developers at Case Logic
see potential of taking on the smartphone accessory market and expect to receive copious profit
margins.
Marketing Analysis:
Market Summary:
Almost every consumer owns a cell phone, and nowadays a cell phone means a
smartphone. Human nature has made those consumers clumsy, which means people often
mishandle their phone. Current technology tends to produce phone that are not made to last,
meaning that their components are made to malfunction really quickly and the phone themselves
are fragile. Both human behavior and technology trend have created the need for a solution to
protect phones for breaking. That is why our company Case Logic tries to meet those needs by
offering a brand new kind of phone cases, durable, sleek, and fashionable.
First, the market of phones is tremendous. In 2012, Samsung sold 384.6 million phones
and Apple sold 130 million units (www.cnn.com, February 2013). The smartphone market is
mostly dominated by those two brands and four main phones stand out : the iPhone 4S, the
iPhone 5C/S, the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Samsung Galaxy S4. Those smartphones are well
known to be fragile and the screens are likely to break after the first drop.
The market for phone cases is divided in two categories. The first category includes
phone cases used as fashionable accessories, sleek but not durable and that do not protect the
phone from breaking. The second category includes bulky phones cases meant to protect the
phone from breaking and are mostly unattractive. Case Logic tends to solve those two problems
by offering one single kind of phone cases for those most popular phones. In addition to offering
regular phone cases for a more fashionable purpose, our company offers phone cases competing
with the most durable phones cases our competitors offer, The experience of our company has
allowed us to develop a technology able to create a sleeker phone case as strong as the existing
bulky ones that flows the market, which is at the same time attractive and customizable. Phones
are now subtly protected with an attractive sleek phone case that does not double the size of the
phone in the pocket.
For Case Logic, the ideal strategy is marketing our product Business-to-Consumer. The
main target market consists of young people caring for their expensive phone who are not ready
to pay for phone insurance. The target audience is broad and includes buyers that would by a
phone case while purchasing their new phone, buyers who would like to prevent their valued
phone from breaking, buyers who need a phone case after having mishandled their phone or as
well buyers tired of their bulky phone case looking for a sleeker but as durable solution.
Target Market:
Geographic’s:
Business-to-Business
The long-term goal for our product is going international. Cell phones are popular
amongst a variety of age groups across the world. Although our product has endless potential,
we must first establish our product in the U.S. market.
Our product is already heavily marketed, but our phones superior attributes will allow our
company to compete with other firms selling phone cases. Using geography we can learn where
we want to market our product. In large cities there are a variety of both small and large
business firms that have a need for our product. Many companies offer their employees
“company phones” which the employees are allowed to use freely. Because our product is
superior in price and style, marketing to these types of firms, could be very attainable.
Business-to-Consumers
For our product to be successful we want to have efficient marketing strategies. We have
compiled a list of demographic strategies, which we plan to help market our phone case to
consumers. In certain regions of the country, there is potential to reach our targeted consumers.
Other areas of the country will not be part of the geographic area that we market to. By
understanding the geography, we can better market our product to the right audience (Gartel).
Studying topography we can understand any particular regions physical features. This
becomes significant when we are establishing regions to market in outside of the major cities.
Our goal is to have our phone cases be easily accessible to the largest amount of people. When
looking at a map of the United States, areas in the North, would be one region that we do not
want to put an emphasis on. Geographically the northern regions of the Midwest are mostly
comprised of plains and plateaus. There are hundreds of miles of flat open land with very little
area for settlement. States such as, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota
would be areas that should be carefully evaluated because our product will not be reaching our
targeted consumers.
One area that is important to the successful marketing of our phone case is coastal
regions. On both the East and West coast, there are large bays and ports, which informs us that
there will also be a large or significant city nearby. Coastal regions are often times vacation
destinations for people that do not live on the coast. Having our product highly regarded in these
areas creates popularity from outside visitors who will then bring it back home with them. Using
the coast as a geographic marketing strategy ensures that a large amount of people will be
exposed to our dynamic phone cases.
Demographics:
Business-to-Business:
Using demographics can be a huge advantage when trying to identify areas of marketing
interest. By simply using a map of the United States, we can pinpoint areas we wish to sell our
product in. Areas of interest for our product include major cities such as Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Miami. These cities have a large population density
and offer the most potential for our product to be seen. In addition they bring an international
dynamic to our product. The high volume of tourism in these cities exposes our phone cases to
different cultures and standards.
Our plan is to market primarily to both males and females from ages 18-24, and 25-34.
Cities with some of the largest populations of these age groups include New York and Los
Angeles (King 1). We want to sell our product in the most popular retail stores
(Verizon,Apple,AT&T) in these cities to effectively reach our target customer. Because our
product is new to the industry, our best strategy is to expose our superior product to the market.
We are confident in our phones cases ability to attract customers because of its sleek design and
affordable price. More importantly we feel we are capable of reaching large populations of
people that either need a phone case or prefer an upgraded model.
Business-to-Consumer:
Demographic factors like race and ethnicity do not play a very important role in helping
our product develop on the market. Therefore we have decided to pay less attention to these
demographic characteristics and identify factors we find more essential for our product.
By advertising our product in large retail stores in large cities, it will undoubtedly give
our device exposure to a large amount of people. But this does not necessarily ensure that
everyone that sees our merchandise will decide to purchase it. We want to expand our marketing
to outside of the cities and into the suburbs where we can reach more age groups and families
with children.
Generally speaking, families with married spouses and children tend to have larger
incomes than single people. This does not necessarily mean that they will buy our product
because they can afford it, they will most likely purchase our product other reasons. For instance
our sleek yet fashionable model appeals to children and teens keeping up with trendy activities.
Our products affordability makes it desirable for the mother and father to purchase multiple units
to serve all members of the family. By marketing to this suburban audience we are able to
market to our most important age groups (18-34) as well as attract consumers from other age
groups.
Behavior Factors/ Psychographics:
Business-to-Business:
Local businesses in our targeted areas may not have significant interest in our product. We have
anticipated that small businesses will naturally adopt our product after it gains popularity on the market.
Ideally, the behavior of the small businesses firms would change once they saw the sales benefits of our
products. Small grocery stores, surf and skate shops, drug stores, and local shopping merchantiles are all
types of stores that sell cell phone cases. The amount of cases available in these stores is limited in
comparison to cell phone retail stores. Generally they sell one type of case, which is usually the most
popular. Our goal is to have our product become the most popular by exposing it in the larger markets
identified in our geographic and demographic strategies (Gartel). This will ensure that our product is
being correctly marketed to our desired audiences. We are relying on a trickle down effect from large
businesses to small businesses. As a result our product will continue to reach targeted families who shop
at small suburban stores. Our strategy for reaching small businesses will have take some time to
implement. However we are not using this strategy as a primary source to reach our targeted consumers.
Getting our product into more retail stores over a period of a few years will help our product in the long
run.
Business-to-Consumer:
To impact the decisions of our target consumer, it is crucial that we can influence their
perceptions and behaviors. As of May 3, 2013 over 90% of Americans own a cell phone. In addition
56% of adults own a smartphone (Brenner). These statistics help simply helps us understand that a lot of
people need phone cases.
It becomes fairly obvious that we want to market to these consumers. They have cell phones and
many have sophisticated phones, which require protection. Our goal here is to pick out the sophisticated
consumers. The sleek phone case we have designed goes hand in hand with those trendy fashionable
shoppers wanting to keep up with the latest looks (Kotler 147-148). They will want our product because it
keeps up with their lavish lifestyles.
We are not only focusing on the sophisticated shoppers. Our hopes are to influence the buying
behavior of consumers between the ages 18-24, specifically college students. Because our phone is “cool
looking” it is extremely affordable. College students want to have the most new technology, but often
times they do not posses the capital to purchase these items. Our product will change this targeted
consumers perception (Kotler 142-145) The phone case that we have made, fits their physiological needs,
being cool, as well as their budget needs.
The Market
Market Needs:
Smartphones are a device that’s purpose is to allow the consumer communication through
multiple channels and have qualities of computers at the palm of their hands. Smartphones have
become a tool that better assists consumers to organize their lives more efficiently, through the
multiple apps available, which also allows them to personalize their devices. With smartphones
becoming the norm of cellular phones today, and as a daily tool comes the need to protect these
expensive devices.
In the survey conducted by SurveyMonkey.com, the need for a durable, yet visually
appealing phone case is in demand in today's growing smartphone market. The survey found that
34.09 percent moderately mishandle their phones (Figure 1). The survey also found that 52.17
percent of those same people who were surveyed felt look was the main factor in purchasing a
phone case, followed by 47.83 percent as though durability and price were the second factors
when purchasing a phone case (Figure 2)(Antoine Couturier, Dillon Foster, Danny Girard, Janice
San Nicolas, Alex Tone).
FIGURE 2:Consumer Levels of Mishandling Phones
(Antoine Couturier, Dillon Foster, Danny Girard, Janice San Nicolas, Alex Tone)
Figure 2: Case Characteristics when Purchasing
(Antoine Couturier, Dillon Foster, Danny Girard, Janice San Nicolas, Alex Tone)
Market Trends:
When assessed the cell phone case market, there are many trends involved. The first
trends are those considered to be durable cases. Durable cases have qualities that withstand
common cell phone accidents. Some elements of these cases include being dirt resistant, water
resistant, crack resistant, shockproof, and more. Qualities of these durable cases focus on
protecting smartphones “...which have slim designs and glass materials…”(www.npd.com,
August 12, 2012), extending the lives of these expensive products that society has adapted into
their daily lives.
The second cell phone case tend are novelty cases. Novelty case purposes are geared
towards fashion and trendiness, with less focus on protection. These cases have become the
dominant trend in the cell phone case market coming in varieties of colors, materials, shapes, and
graphics. Novelty cases have caught attentions of many company’s and high-end designers, who
have intersected this market adding additions to their company’s product mix. These cases have
become a fun interchangeable accessory, which caters to the cell phone owners moods and tastes
allowing them to express themselves through their chosen case.
The last trend is wallet and purse cases. These cases are the newest trend in the market,
which are a two-in-one contraption working as a cell phone case and a wallet, or a cell phone
case and a purse. These cases have become an item that is not just fashion forward but they
eliminate space and bulk, and create ease by allowing personal items such as money, keys, and
identifications to be in the same contraption as a phone.
Market Growth
With the cellular and smart phone device markets continuing to grow profoundly each
year, the cell phone and smartphone device accessory market will also continue to grow and
flourish with the rise in overall demand for the product. The growing complementary market of
cellular phones will allow our product to be successful in the cell phone accessory market, but
more specifically in the case segment.
The first variable in the cell phone case market segment is the inclining amounts of
phones that are sold worldwide. “The global count of active mobile subscriptions reached 6.7
Billion at the end of 2012,” and will for “...the first time ever on this planet, a consumer
technology will match the human population in size. (www.communities-dominate.blogs.com,
March 06, 2013). The worldwide human population is totaled at 7.1 billion. This number of
subscriptions has grown 14% from last year’s number of cell phone subscriptions.
(www.communities-dominate.blogs.com, March 06, 2013). With the cell phone market
continuing to grow at this rapid pace, leave the case market to incline as well. The incline of
phone sales will translate into the case market, since they are complementary goods.
The second variable is the growing population of smartphones and their users.
Smartphones have contributed to half of the cell phone market, influencing the sales of cell
phone accessories. Every three months companies are releasing new Androids, IPhones, and
Windows phones every couple of months changing the physicality of the phones. This in turn
grows the need to purchase new cases due to prior cases not being able to fit their new products.
Also, smartphones have higher consumer interaction that call for higher end accessories, and
account for 50% of the total mobile accessory market (www.prweb.com, July 26, 2013). The
growing demand for smartphones and their penetration into the market as an essential everyday
tool grows the needs of purchasing a case for protection purposes, and or to personalize it with a
unique case. According to the ABI Research technology marketing group put the value of the
smartphone accessories market at $20 billion in mid-2012 and it is forecast to grow to $36 billion
by 2017. Although sales of feature phones – aka basic cell phones – are declining, the feature
phone accessories market still accounted for $12 billion in 2012, ABI reported. Further, feature
phone owners spent an average of only $28.17 per phone on accessories, while smartphone
owners spent twice as much, $56.18 per device. That $20 billion in sales potential is on display
at any retail store where they sell phones or at the carriers’ stores such as AT&T and Verizon
where they sell phones and service contracts. (ABI, 2012).
SWOT Analysis
In order to analyze the factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving our objectives,
Case Logic must evaluate its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Strength
Case Logic’s major strength is the experience gained regarding the electronic-device
cases market since the creation of the company in 1984. Our company has been and remained
one of the leaders in this market thanks to its quality products, competitive prices, strong product
line and efficient channels of distribution.
Our company offers quality products at relatively affordable prices regarding the
competition and our product line is the most complete of the market. With a wide product mix
offering laptop, tablet, e-reader, camera, portable electronics, CD/DVD, and phone cases, Case
Logic has the most complete portfolio on the market and offers the best solutions for any
electronic-device storage. The length and width of every product line is remarkable and
customers have a large choice for every kind of product they need, from laptop backpacks to
USB cases.
Our channels of distribution are strong, from regular big box superstores such as WalMart to online platforms such as Amazon. We provide every single distributor with a large
choice of products for every product line and our products are recognized for their value. Our
distribution channels are worldwide and our products are available on five continents through
our loyal distributors and through online platforms such as Amazon. The latter is one of our
strongest distributor and its search engine allow Case Logic to appear in a top results when a
customer looks for any kind of electronic-device case.
Weaknesses
Despite those strength Case Logic has two main weaknesses. The major issue is the lack
of awareness from the consumers regarding the brand. The survey conducted by our company
has shown that 85% of target customers do not know the brand Case Logic (see Figure 3). This
major issue is likely to be due to the complete inexistence of advertising from Case Logic.
Despite being easily available on Amazon.com in the top results, the brand does not stick to the
products in the customer’s mind. Hence our biggest challenge will be to educate our target
audience to the name of the brand to benefit from the recognition of the entire product line.
Figure 3: Brand recognition
(Antoine Couturier, Dillon Foster, Danny Girard, Janice San Nicolas, Alex Tone. SurveyMonkey. October, 2013)
Our phone case line is the least developed line in our company’s portfolio. With only 16
products for only four kinds of phones, our company needs to stretch this product line upward to
offer more durable phone cases than the regular ones we already produce.
Opportunities
The phone case market is a growing market with promising opportunities, which Case
Logic is able to benefit from. In 2012, Samsung sold 384.6 million phones and Apple sold 130
million iPhones (www.cnn.com, February 2013). Those new phones released every year are
always slightly different from the previous ones and hence require a new phone case. People
spend hundreds of dollars on their new phone and a $30 to $50 phone case becomes a marginal
cost customers are ready to pay to protect their new valued phone.
Additionally to market trends, human behavior is a great source of opportunities for our business.
People will always mishandle their phone and drop it by accident. Today phones are not made to
last and are more and more easy to break, that is why phone cases are becoming the number one
solution to protect phones from breaking and a phone case will always remain more affordable
than an phone insurance.
Phone carriers are transforming their stores and now offer more accessories than actual
phones. This trend is a great opportunity for Case Logic to distribute our phone cases directly to
the customers at the same moment they buy their new phone. Retail Stores are also changing and
offer phones, phone contracts and accessories. This new trend is as well a new way to sell phone
cases while customers are buying their new phone.
Threats
Finally, there are several threats Case Logic will face on the phone case market. The
major threat is the number of competitors already existing in this market and some of them are
pretty established and can be considered as leaders. Our main competitor is OtterBox, the current
leader on the market regarding durable and life-proof phone cases. But this main competitor is
not the only threat; hundreds of small business produce phone cases for cheap and sell those at a
really low price. Those phone cases are made to be fashionable and not durable, but still remain a
relevant competition for our company.
New entrants are as well big threats for Case Logic. As phone cases do not require
patents to be produces, a relative important number of companies can enter the market with
different kind of phone cases. The patent-free issue also threatens our company regarding
copycats. Phone cases are easy to be copied and produce a similar looking case is easy to do, that
is why our company needs to focus on quality and durability.
Another threat can be the trend of fashionable and interchangeable phone cases. A lot of
customers buy phone cases for looks and not for real protection. Our products are made to last
and not to be changed every month. Customers can get tired of our protection-efficient phone
case, feel comfortable with the safety of their phone and decide to buy a cheaper more
fashionable phone case. This threat is an incentive for our company to focus on style options to
offer our customers a certain freedom in the choice of the look for their phone case instead of a
generic durable black phone case.
Table 1 : Summary Table
Internal
Positive
Negative
Strengths
Weaknesses
- Experienced company
- Lack of brand awareness among
- Quality products
consumers
- Competitive prices
- Lack of advertising from the company
- Strong product line
- Phone case line little developed
- Efficient channels of distribution
External
Opportunities
Threats
- Growing smartphone market
- High number of competitors
- New phones means new phone
- A few big leaders
cases
- A lot of small cheap competitors
- People will always mishandle their
- Fashion trends
phone
- Phone insurances are expensive
- Phone carriers sell more and more
accessories in their stores
Competition:
Our key competitors in the phone case market consist of: Otter box, Trident, Intsen,
Targus, Ballistic, Kensington, Coveroo. The current market leader of the cell phone case market
however is Otterbox. The one main advantage over our competitors is that we as a corporation
will not be using the same materials as the other phone cases manufacturers and will have a
larger consumer appeal. By using a second mover advantage as a corporation we can observe
what has made Otterbox successful and make such improvements on the sleekness and appeal of
the product yet keeping the durability of the product vital. Furthermore our main goal as a
corporation will be to maintain a market-centered core value so we can spend most of our time
focusing on both competitor and customer developments in designing strategies for our products.
By focusing primarily on consumer demands we will keep consumers content with our products
and convince them to come back for their next phone case purchase over our competitors.
Product Offering:
Our product diversifies from the rest of the selected market because the current product
from our competitor’s design and construction consists of a two-piece phone case construction.
The major difference with our cell phone case will be the use of a two-piece structure made of
aluminum and rubber case. By using aluminum internal shell and a higher-grade rubber outer
shell than our competitors we can mold together a case that is durable yet visually appealing
which is the key demand from consumers. Instead of the bulky hard plastic internal frame with a
cheap feeling rubber outer shell our product will instead consist of a thinner aluminum inside
shell with a higher-grade rubber outside shell to insure protections yet give the phone a slimmer
and sleeker design. Our company is using a similar ideology to Apple when it comes to our
product because our goal will be to have a consumer hold of our phone cases next to the
traditional Otterbox case a consumer will notice immediate quality differences just with the
simply look and texture upgrades yet still competing within the same market segment.
Also similar to our competitors our consumers will have access to a warranty that will
include a 1-year coverage for the case itself. We as a corporation will not be liable for the phones
within the case. For example if the phone case is to bend or break simply send it in and we will
replace it. However if the phone within the case is damaged we will not be liable. Furthermore
the product is self-installed by the user since they will be putting the phone case onto their own
phone. Our product will also come with a product guide/manual that will demonstrate how to put
the case on properly. Also similar to our competitors we will create a phone case assembly video
that will be available via our Case Logic website or on YouTube so our consumers will be insert
the phone into the case correctly.
Keys to Success:
The main key to our marketing success is the development of a quality phone case. It is
our goal to develop a durable, yet visually appealing case that will attract consumers and draw
the away from the market leading phone case brands such as Otterbox and Trident. If Case Logic
is unable to develop an appealing, shockproof case at a price manageable price to make a profit,
then our marketing plan will surely fail.
The next keys to the success of our product involve marketing our case and promoting
our brand, Case Logic. We are a leading provider of many protective cases for alternative
devices such as: Laptops, Digital Cameras, Tablets, DVDs, GPS’, and Mp3 players. With our
extensive line of quality products, we wish to attract previous purchasers and introduce them to
our line of protective phone cases. Consumers are more likely to revert to a brand that they are
comfortable with and can be sure that they are receiving a quality product.
The hardest part of our marketing strategy is to attract consumers that are not familiar
with our brand name or our product line. Case Logic would start with various ads providing
positive affiliation with our brand name as well as our product through social media and
alternative forms of advertising. These ads are attractive to the younger generations making
young adults our target group.
The profit that Case Logic will make on our product directly relates with the availability
of our product with the consumer. We wish to have our product readily available for customers
at the same time as their phone purchase. Market research shows that 31% of smartphone
consumers purchase their phone case simultaneously along with their phone. Case Logic will
benefit from the reliability prescribed by the largest wireless providers such as AT&T and
Verizon Wireless carrying our product on their shelves.
Case Logic will also strive to partner with retail stores such as Target, Wal-Mart,
RadioShack, and BestBuy. These locations are incredibly important in order to promote Case
Logic as a quality brand and grow our reputation amongst the casual public. Cases bought at
these types of retail stores are purchased out of necessity; whether the consumer was not satisfied
with their previous phone case, or they do not yet have one. As the consumer begins to browse
the isles of smartphone cases, the attractiveness of our case will surely draw the consumer’s
attention.
One last key to the success of our product includes successful international marketing.
Case Logic has already established a reputation for quality protective cases all around the world.
Case Logic distributes to 80 different countries and our company has distribution offices in Hong
Kong, Japan, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. All of these locations will
work toward developing a positive reputation that will surely lead to profits made from all
around the world.
Critical Issues: The “Show Stoppers”
Many issues have the opportunity to arise in a market such as smartphone cases. The
major problem is the lack of knowledge and association with our brand, Case Logic, and quality
smartphone cases. In this instance, the market leading Otterbox can be considered our
showstopper. This product has a following due to its name and the reliability of its shockproof
guarantee. The consumer knows what they are getting with this product and will buy it for the
sheer necessity of phone protection.
The main show stopper for our product is if we cannot provide the consumer with a
smartphone case with the qualities and aesthetics that we are promoting. If our design does not
meet the consumer needs for a protective smartphone case, then our product will surely fail. We
are attempting to draw consumers away from the market leading Otterbox, so if our design does
not give the consumer enough incentive to try a new product, then we will not receive our
desired profits.