Amanda Wisniewski
AIMC 486 Jones
Primetime Developmental Playthings, Inc.
A.
THE PROBLEM
1.
Key Problem:
How to establish Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc.’s (PDP) complete product line to be seen as a whole, in order to stimulate consumer demand, and maintain retailer loyalty while increasing the amount of retailers that carry the complete product line of PDP.
2.
The Marketing Problem Advertising can solve:
By developing a corporate identity for PDP, retailers and consumers will be informed of the full PDP line, how it is interconnected, and how it grows as the child learns. This will showcases the importance of carrying the entire line within the retailer’s store as it will build store traffic, consumer demand, and consumer loyalty.
B.
ADVERTISING STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT FORM
1.
What is the product? a.
Reality
Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc. is relatively small toys manufacturer that accounts for about 20% of industry sales, with an annual market growth having been steady at 5%, which manufacturers specialty and educational toys. Their toys are distributed through specialty toy retailers, not direct to consumer sales. Within the United States there are approximately 15,000 specialty and educational toy retailers, PDP is currently distributed in over 3,500 stores. They are a concept driven company, and believe in, “providing the highest quality toy brands that stimulate children’s natural creativity and encourage development backed by a lifetime guarantee.” Within the company, they attempt to set themselves apart in its concept orientation, because no product stands apart from itself, each product is inter connected, or part of a larger whole.
Source: The IMC Handbook b.
Perception
Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc. is hard to find as they are strictly distributed through specialty retailers, and do not do direct consumer sales. They only point you in the right direction of where to purchase (on website). Not all of the retail stores carry the entire line and this makes it difficult for consumers to see/play with the toys that are manufactured. Products can be found on Ebay and
Amazon if retailers are not close (often sold used) With lots of educational toys entering the market from mass marketers, shopping specialty toy retailers becomes more difficult due to location and convenience, as consumers are already going to where mass marketed toys are located for other items. Consumers enjoy the high-end quality compared to mass-produced educational toys, but the increased price does not justify the value.
Source: The IMC Handbook

Amanda Wisniewski
AIMC 486 Jones
Ebay and Amazon selling information was looked up using real competitor Educational Insights as product
2.
Who are the prospects? a.
General –
Customer: Adults, predominately women, in their mid 30’s, with a relatively high level of education. Household is small, two to three children usually closer in age (one to three years of separation)
Income is higher than average incomes (75,000 or more) with usually one spouse working full time. Our target market has money to afford higher-priced toys, and with their higher level of education is more concerned about what their children are playing with. These parents want their children to grow up to be future presidents, not stocking a shelf at the local supermarket.
Source: The IMC Handbook
Retailer: Adults, in their 30’s to 50’s, with specialty/educational toy knowledge. They will have a bachelor’s degree in business management, or at the very least have ten plus years of managerial experience. Will be perceived as business oriented, yet nurturing, have a love for children, and/or nostalgia for toys. They will know their customers and their community, so they can stock items their customer base will buy. Retailers will most likely pay rent for the store location, and/or have a mortgage they pay on.
Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/188256 b.
Specific
Customer: Brenda Wisniewski, 47, mother of three daughters,
Amanda (29), Rachel (18), and Sydney (14), wife to Tom
Wisniewski, 49 who is a Catholic middle school history teacher at
Holy Spirit. Brenda is currently a health and safety manager for
Gentex. Both graduated from college with bachelor’s degrees, and their two oldest daughters are also in college. They both believe education is how you get anywhere in live and have instilled that in their daughters, this is why two are in college and living at home.
Both work full time, have a mortgage on their house in a suburb of
Grand Rapids. Family income is roughly $180,000 yearly. Brenda is aunt to 2 children Sienna (5), and Veve (3), and enjoys spoiling them as she currently is not a grandmother, but her daughters are too old to spoil and she has some disposable income. She prides herself on her family, and spends a lot of time shopping, making meals, entertaining, and cheering on her daughters in whatever sport or activity they are involved in. Her family describes her as being caring, nurturing, yet honest.
Source: personal interview with mother 10/19/2015
Retailer: Jonny Girson, owner of the Learning Tree toy store in
Prairie Village, Kan, 52, husband to Kate Girson, two children, Tom
(32) and Lilly (28). Kate is a stay at home wife (was a stay at home mother) who currently owns her own ETSY.com store, and aids in running her husbands toy store from time to time. Jonny is college

Amanda Wisniewski
AIMC 486 Jones educated and has a bachelor’s degree in business management; his wife has an associate’s degree in business administration. Jonny works full-time at the toy store, during random hours, but prides himself on being there during customer hours. He employs a small staff of about eight plus his wife. They currently have 10 years left on their home mortgage, make about $100,000 collectively and live comfortably. Their children have their own lives and families in different states and are seen around the holidays and other special occasions. They are actively involved within their community and church, and know most of the townspeople names by face. Jonny is described as friendly, caring, and a “good man” by most of those townspeople.
Source: Customer profile composite
3.
Who is the principal competition?
The principal competition includes Brio, Educational Insights,
LearningCurve, and Playmobile. Together, with PDP these five competitors make up about 80% of the specialty and educational toy category. These five competitors are often competing for shelf space within the category among specialty retailers. However, when mass marketers enter the toy and game makers industry as a whole, the two heaviest competitors in the field (Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc.) command a 24.80% of the market share between the two of them, and diminish the market share of specialty and educational toys to make a much smaller market presence within the board spectrum of toys.
Source: The IMC Handbook http://0bi.galegroup.com.libcat.ferris.edu/global/article/GALE|I2502048524/4
5447aa3cfebf8a9c7f55089cf353e6e?u=lom_ferrissu
4.
What is the competitive consumer benefit?
Customer: Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc. knows the importance of making education fun at a young age, which is why our product line stimulates children’s natural creativity, grows with your child as they learn, and each of our products our interconnected for continued development.
Retailer: Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc. understands the pride you place on selecting the correct products for your retail customers.
We are the brand whose whole product line is interconnected to each other so that as the child grows, the product lines grows with them to establish brand loyalty among customers and increase consumer demand along with store traffic.
5.
What is the support for the benefit? The reason why?
Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc. product line ranges from birth to 16 years of age. With each product line interconnected to continue development and build off of what was learned previously it makes educational learning fun while still being able to play with a toy.
6.
Positioning Statement

Amanda Wisniewski
AIMC 486 Jones
Customer: To the mother concerned about jump starting their child’s education and development, Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc. is the brand that knows the importance of making education fun at a young age. We are the brand that stimulates children’s natural creativity and continued development through our interconnected products, because as your child grows, our product line grows with them to become a larger part of their whole education.
Retailer: To the retailer concerned about shelf space and sales in their business, Primetime Developmental Playthings Inc. is the brand whose whole product line is interconnected to each other so that as a child grows, the product lines grow with them to establish brand loyalty among your customers to increase consumer demand along with store traffic to your location.
7.
What is the Communication Objective? a.
Primetime Developmental Playthings whole product line is interconnected to each other so that as a child grows, the product lines grow with them. b.
Primetime Developmental Playthings understands the pride you take in the selection of (your/consumers) children’s toys.
8.
What is the Tone of the Advertising?
Understanding. Friendly. Humble, yet at the same time superior.
Informative about how the product line is interconnected to each other and grows with the child.
9.
Perceptual Effect
After one year retailers and consumers will be informed of how the PDP product lines are interconnected, and will feel that the whole line grows as the child learns (grows). Consumers will feel that PDP toys are educational, yet fun toys that their children enjoy playing with and will start to develop a sense of brand loyalty. Within two years this consumer loyalty will increase retailer loyalty as consumers will increase store traffic with the demand for additional products within the product line their child is in currently, or the next step up in the product line as their child grows, and the potential for gift giving to others. This store traffic and demand
10.
will in turn make the retailer feel a sense of accomplishment in making the choice to stock the entire product line of PDP.
Divisional/Corporate Requirements
None
C.
ANSWERS TO SPECIFIC CONCERNS RELATED TO THE CASE
AND PROBLEM
1. Industry and competition: PDP needs to truly set themselves apart from their competition by clearing defining what makes them different – the fact that their product lines are completely interconnected and grow with a child as the child (grows) learns. They also need to clearly define themselves within the educational toy category and remove themselves from simply the toy category as they are a small company just now clearly creating a corporate identity for themselves and cannot compete for market share against heavy hitters such as Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc.

Amanda Wisniewski
AIMC 486 Jones
Technology: With mobile applications and Internet becoming a major player with younger and younger consumers, and one mass marketers are currently using, perhaps PDP needs to think about adding an eliminate to their educational toys that make the toy “wireless” in that it goes to a website or mobile application for additional “added” educational fun content. OR all together take a stance against children playing on mobile applications and Internet until they are a certain age (say 16 and up, when their product lines expire and are no longer connected) as it is very easy to use these devices as crutches to creativity and educational development.
Customers: PDP’s marketing strategy needs to have a big idea that can relate to both retailers and retailers consumers as PDP does not sell direct to consumer. While the positioning statement may be slightly different for the end result, it is ultimately the educational toy PDP is selling, so the true benefit of what the product lines are needs to be clearly defined.
(Hence the need for a corporate identity)
2. SWOT analysis of current marketing strategy (not the one I
created)
Strengths Weaknesses
- Excellent customer relationships
- Development Dollar program
- Extensive product information
- Steady 5% market growth
- Products have lifetime guarantee
- Product lines are interconnected and do not just stand alone
Opportunities
- Higher priced than some competitors (mass marketers) not necessary seen as value added
- Few places to purchase the product lines
- Complete product lines not found in all stores.
- Product lines not all located together within the same store (if entire line is carried)
- No direct to consumer sales
Threats
- Primetime Club program
- The PDP Database and direct marketing efforts
- Rewards Program for buying the different product lines
(both retailer and consumer)
- Plaything Playtimes
- Direct to consumer sales
- Involvement in social media
- Mass marketing
- Retailers dropping product lines
(much less carrying full PDP line)
- Hot new educational toy produced by mass marketer
- Mass marketers (Mattel Inc. and
Hasbro Inc. enter the specialty retailers
3. PDP should aim its consumer marketing communications strictly at parents. As they manufacture specialty and educational toys, while they are seen as fun, a relatively small company will not have an advertising

Amanda Wisniewski
AIMC 486 Jones budget to create enough buzz to capture a children’s attention from that of a mass marketer’s (usually the ones advertised) product. The parents before a child will likely see educational toy benefits in any form of marketing. In order to make the educational toy seem interesting to a child, in the form of marketing, the educational toy would lose some of it’s marketing power with the parent. While children do spend their “own” money on toys, it is ultimately the parent’s decision if they allow their child to play with the toy or not.