The Marketing of a single product

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the marketing of a single product. We have choose the Adidas Deep Energy deodorant which is a product from Adidas, a major German-based sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok Sportswear Company, TaylorMade-Adidas Golf Company, and Rockport. Their array of products shows that they produce sports footwear, bags, watches, eyewear, apparel, equipment, and other products such as shower creams and deodorants. Deodorant for men is getting more popular amongst men and women. Nowadays, deodorants are used as a trend for fashion accessories instead of preventing serious body odour. Adidas Deep Energy deodorant is a high performance energizing deodorant body spray developed with athletes.  It has a 24 hour fresh power formula to keep consumer feeling energized all day long. It is 100% free from alcohol and it will not leave white markings on consumer’s shirt.

First, we analyze the market for our product by using a SWOT analysis. Then we discuss about the product life cycle, the core product, the actual product and the augmented product. We also determine the product’s segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy. Last but not least, we show how consumers would progress through the buying decision process for this product. As a conclusion, we summarize the key finding of each section and conclude our views.

SWOT analysis for the adidas deep energy man deodorant

Strengths:

The adidas company created a strong image that is relevant to sporty and outgoing since it is established. The deep energy man deodorant is a new deodorant product under Adidas and it started entering the deodorant market since 2008.Adidas’s reputation is popular and strong, there is a lot of loyal consumer. They believe in the products from adidas, once a new product is launch, they are willing to pay and try new product. Through words of mouth , deep energy man deodorant immediately makes a presence in the deodorant market. The packaging of adidas deep energy is attractive; it caught the consumer’s eye because of the unique design which matches the image of the sport concept as compared to other competitors in the deodorant market.

Adidas brand being a company with a long history and known globally makes it a trusted brand hence consumer will feel comfortable buying their new product category.

Weakness:

Adidas is a famous brand, and is always match the image of upper class social life style, adidas deep energy man deodorant face a over pricing problem, the company setting too high price for this deodorant. The price of deep energy man deodorant is higher than the average price in the deodorant market and this lower the competitiveness of the product. Adidas deep energy man deodorant is a new product to deodorant market, it is not available in many places and as a result the non availability will limit their sales for now.

Adidas is well known for shoes, apparel and sports bag, consumer may not know they have a deodorant as well unless they promote it aggressively. Consumer looking for a deodorant will most probably look for known deodorant brand like Rexona unless in the process of them getting a Rexona a promoter try to promote Adidas Deodorant. Consumers who have been using Rexona may not want to try other brand unless Rexona fails them. Consumers may feel that deodorant is not Adidas specialty, consumer may feel that if they want to buy a sports shoes they will look for Adidas but not deodorant.

Opportunities:

The changes in the man spending behavior and social attitudes provide a big market for this product. Men are becoming more open and pay more attention to their self hygiene, deodorant has become their demands. The growth rates for man deodorant markets is very fast and offer a great opportunity for adidas deep energy man deodorant to explore. Technology and rapid globalization make the adidas can publicize its product through internet. It causes efficient effect for consumers who always lazy for shopping and browse website for purchase. This opens a new market for adidas deep energy man deodorant. Adidas can tap into their vast customer’s base and cross sell effectively in their concept stores. With more product offering will attract more customers as they might be attracted with the varieties of products available to them at Adidas Store. Other brands under the same category with Adidas for eg. Nike, Puma, have not gone into deodorant market which may be an advantage to Adidas for offering more products under their brand.

Threats:

Deodorant has close substitutes goods like perfume. Consumer may choose branded perfume (DKNY, GUCCI,ESTEE LAUDER) instead of deodorant as the perfume can represent their social class.Adidas deep energy man deodorant face a internal competitors that are another function deodorant product under adidas like: cool ice man deodorant, active man deodorant. Competitions from known deodorant brands (nivea, axe, rexona) in deodorant market might threathens growth and tough competitions will increase promotion cost which will affect profitability and Adidas may need to close down this product category and focus on their specialty.

There are also articles on the newspaper and internet about deodorant might cause health issues after a prolong use for eg. Cancer. Consumers may opt for something that are with health statements that it will not cause health issues, organic products or deodorant with natural ingredients.

PRODUCT ANALYSIS

Product life cycle stages

The product life cycle concept may apply to our product, Adidas Deep Energy Deodorant. The product life cycle concept helps our marketing managers to plan marketing strategies to address the challenges that our products are likely to face. Product’s life cycle can be divided into several stages which include introduction stage, growth stage, maturity stage and decline stage.

Introduction stage

Introduction stage shows small or even no sales and the company make no profit. When the Adidas men deep energy deodorant is introduced, sales will be low until customers become aware of the product and its benefits. This stage involves lots of research, expenditure and planning are required. Advertising costs of our deodorants product are high during this stage in order to quickly increase customer awareness of the product and to target the early adopters. During the introduction stage, we are expecting to incur additional costs related with the initial distribution of the product. These higher costs fixed with a low sales normally make the introduction stage a period of negative profits.

Growth stage

During growth stage, the sales increase due to new competition under the market. Related products starts come up and we have to concentrate on competitive advantages which could be lower down the price, value added features or other innovations. Profits rise due to an increase in output and perhaps better prices. At this stage, it is cheaper for Adidas to invest in enhance their market share as well as enjoying the overall growth of the market.

Maturity stage

In the maturity stage, sales of our product growth slow and generic competition appear. We may enhance our deodorant product features to differentiate the product. The selling price may start to erode under competitive price. In this stage, competition is strong as companies contest to maintain their market share. The Maturity Stage is the time when most profit is earned by the market as a whole. Some expenditure on research and development is likely to be controlled to our deodorant product modification and improvement and to improve production efficiency and quality.

Decline stage

In the Decline Stage, the market is reducing, decreasing the overall total of profit that can be shared with other competitors. Decline stage appear for some reasons the sales of our deodorant product starts declining, the causes could be some new and better choices or diminishing demand. At this stage, we have to manage our product carefully. It may be likely to cut out some production cost, to transfer production to a cheaper facility, sell the product into other cheaper markets.

Core Product

Adidas Deep Energy deodorants for Men provide the consumers the fresh, woody fragrance. This deep energy deodorant for men is alcohol-based, and provides excellent anti-bacterial formulation to consumers. It helps in keeping the under-arms fresh all day long, and also facilitate in reducing perspiration levels. In addition, it helps in deactivate the bacteria, and in turn ensuring zero body odors. This deodorant provides great protection against sweat and odor. Our deodorant product has been developed with athletes in mind to provide the best possible of protection anti sweat and odor. It also reducing ability of bacteria to breed thus gets rid of a sweat smell.

Actual product

The brand name of our product is Adidas Men Deodorant Clear Stick, Deep Energy. The selling price of it is RM8.90.

Packaging design plays a crucial role in helping to communicate the image of the product. Black is a color choice for the packaging. They also used a hard container to emphasize the sport spirit in the product. 3 oz and 85g of a bottle with a slanted black plastic flip-top lid design to the top of it. It is developed for athletes, unique energizing fragrance, and 24 hours fresh power remain.

The advertisement for the Adidas deodorant features the three guys playing basketball under the shining hot sun. Their faces are not shown, nor the colors that they wear and remain secret. There is the image of them playing basketball. The presence of the fading orange background, it seems these guys have been playing all day. The color design of the advertisement is very dull. In the middle through the advertisement, there is a picture on the right hand site of the Adidas deep energy deodorants that the buyer can choose from.

Augmented product

In our assignment, augmented product can be considered include guarantee, warranty, customer service, accessibility as well as complementary product.

Guarantee offers an assurance of the product that will be perform up to expectations and if not the company marketing of the product will support the decision of customers to restore, repaired or return for a refund.

Warranty provides customers the protection that extends past the guarantee period to protect repair or replacement of our deodorants product.

Customer Service consists of extra services that support the needs of customers including offering training and help using telephone or online. Thus, customers of our product can solve their problem by using these.

Complementary Products is some product purchases that could be improved with add-on products, such as make the main product convenience to use. For instance, small little cover bag gift with the deodorant which consumers can carry easily. Improves styling or offers functionality which will attract more customers to buy our deodorants product.

Accessibility is how customers get the product which based on how easy it is to obtain, the speed of it could be achieved, and the possibility its available when needed. We can supply our deodorant products to those convenience stores such as Guardian, Watson, 7-eleven, and supermarkets and so on. So that customers could obtain our deodorants product as easy and available when needed.

SEGMENTATION AND POSITIONING STRATEGY

MARKET SEGMENT AND TARGETING

Adidas will use a few type of segmentation method which is demographic, psychographic and behavioral segmentation to segment the whole market in order to determine an actionable, identifiable, substantial and reachable market segment for their hotel. Adidas used demographic segmentation to segment the market based on the basis of objective characteristics such as income level and gender. Adidas has targeted the men’s deodorant market to be profitable and accessible. Thus, Adidas had come out with a range of men’s deodorant product to cater for the target audience. Adidas has targeted that teenager, young adults and adults to be their potential customer. Adidas had made its name in the being the leader for sportswear. Thus, the price of Adidas new range deodorant wouldn’t be cheap to protect its brand image. If Adidas were to set their prices low for their deodorant product, customer would have a perception in mind that the product isn’t up to the standard, and would choose to avoid purchasing the product. Does with slightly higher price for their deodorant product, Adidas has target customer with income level of middle class range to purchase for their product.

Apart from using demographic segmentation alone, Adidas had also segment the market through behavioral segmentation. Adidas used this segmentation approach because it helps them to clearly indicate the real benefit sought by customer in the target segment and they can make some adjustment on their product and service to meet the customers need and wants. Thus Adidas new ranges of deodorant product are made purpose to bring benefits upon usage to their customer after identifying their benefit sought within the product. As such, Adidas has brought in features like 24-hour protection against perspiration, anti-whitening material to minimize white marks on skin and clothes and 0% alcohol in their product. Customer looking for such benefit within the deodorant product will go for Adidas because their product offers such benefits to them. Besides, Adidas have many loyal customers even before the launch of their new range of deodorant product. Thus, this part of their loyal customer will surely opt for Adidas new deodorant product rather than other substitute brands. Lastly, under the psychographic segmentation, the new Adidas also targeted their new deodorant to cater for customers who have different lifestyle. Their new products are targeted at customer who wants to look good and smell good in their daily lives.

POSITIONING

The concept of positioning is set to put a product in a certain position, or place, in the minds of potential customer. Marketers use positioning to further distinguish their product for those competitors promote desired product position. Thus Adidas have taken steps to create the intended image for the product in the minds of customer. Adidas position its product for consumers who want to success and Adidas have used great athletes as ambassadors for their products. Adidas is giving the idea to consumers that they will be successful if they choose to use Adidas product. As an example, Adidas formed a great relationship with some of the world’s best players such as the FIFA World Player of the Year Zinédine Zidane, David Beckham, Raúl, Michael Ballack, Kaká and Rui Costa. These great players are well known for their great success in sports, thus they fit the criteria to advertise for Adidas product. Besides, Adidas price their deodorant product slightly costlier compare to their competitors pricing, this is because Adidas intend to create an image for their product stating that it is a quality product. Most customer will perceived that higher and better quality goods will be much costlier. By positioning its product as the best in the category, the product will easily appear in customer evoke set when they are thinking of purchasing for quality deodorant product. In the product attribute aspect, Adidas have chosen to use high quality chemicals to manufacture their product. As a result, Adidas has come out with deodorant products which are 100% free from alcohol and they claim that it will not leave white markings on consumer’s shirt which some deodorants do. In packaging wise, Adidas carefully design their product packaging with stylish design to create a quality image within customers mind. Adidas also manufacture their deodorant packaging with high quality of raw materials to further bring the product to a higher class. ADIDAS get a successful place in the buyers’ mind through better product attributes, price and quality, offering the product in a different way compared to the competitors

BUYING DECISION PROCESS

Researcher found that when consumer makes decision to buy a product, they pass through few stages of decision process. There are a total of five stages of the decision process consumer undergo. However, not most of the time consumer passes through all five stages before purchasing; they often skip or reverse some stages. This model is vital in making marketing decision which vigor marketers to consider buying process rather than purchase decision.

Need Recognition & Problem Awareness is the first stage of buying decision process. The need for a product is trigger through external and internal stimuli. Marketer creates awareness for their product through advertising. External stimuli help trigger consumer’s need for the product and internally causes physiological imbalance which consumer’s will recognize a need. In this assignment, we are using deodorant as our product therefore example, a guy is aware that he has body odor and sweats vigorously after sports so he is encouraged to buy a deodorant to stay fresh. The consumer then need to decide how much information is required. If the need is not strong, then the next stage begins which is the information search stage.

Consumer respond to need by searching information, they have been motivated to search for information on products that match the need. Consumer can obtain information from several sources such as personal sources (e.g. family, friends), commercial sources (e.g. advertising, retailers, and salesperson), and public sources. (e.g. radio, newspaper, television). It is suggested through findings that customers relies more on personal sources than commercial sources which is known as “word of mouth”. For example, for our product Adidas Deep Energy Deodorant, consumer will gather information on deodorant through several resources including advertising, friends, internet and also salesperson.

Third stage of consumer buying process is evaluation of alternatives which also meant how consumer processes the information found to make the right choice. Consumers allocate features to decide which brand to purchase based on product that is better than competitor’s product. For example price of Rexona Deodorant is cheaper and Adidas Deep Energy Deodorant can last longer, but lasting is more important to you then the price. Consumers normally will find the product reliable if their friends have had good history with the brand.

Through previous process, consumers reach their final decision which refers to consumer choosing the most preferable product. Purchase decision could be influence by two variables which is attitudes of others and unexpected situational factors. For example, going into a shop to buy the selected deodorant.

Finally is post purchase behavior which is an ordinary trait among consumers. Post purchase behavior is defined as the satisfaction or dissatisfaction that consumer feels about the purchase made. There are two determinant affecting post purchase behavior therefore if relationship between consumer’s expectation and product’s performance is larger, then the greater the consumer’s dissatisfaction. For example, let’s say the consumer is satisfied with the performance and the product have reached his expectation, most probably he will come back for Adidas Deep Energy Deodorant the next time.

ROLES IN THE BUYING PROCESS AND THE TYPES OF BUYING DECISION BEHAVIOR.

There are numerous factors affecting consumer’s behavior including cultural, social, personal and psychological factors. Firstly, culture factor is defined as learned values and behavior from family and other important institutions. It is not easy to change a person’s culture as it is passed down from generation to generation. Subcultures are groups of people sharing the same values in terms of racial, religious, activities etc. For example when more surrounding people uses Adidas deodorant instead of other brand, he will eventually acknowledge the existence of that product. Social classes are relatively permanent in society where members share similar values which are measure by income, education, occupation and others.

Next factor affecting consumer’s behavior is social factor that involve reference group, family and status. References group are groups of individual, some individual may look forward to have impact on consumer behavior. Social status is groups, family, organizations that a person belongs to that define his or her status and role.

Personal factor influences consumer behavior by personal characteristics eg, age and life-cycle stage. For example a guy is an athlete, he is a pretty bad sweater so he need deodorant to keep him in good smell and the right aroma which he prefer. Psychological factors consist of motivation, perception, learning and belief and attitudes. Maslow Hierarchy of Need is essential in psychological factor. It start off with physiological, safety, social, esteem and finally self-actualization. Continue with the previous example, the athlete trying to have both satisfaction on doing his favorites running while smelling good with deodorant.

Under buying decision behavior, there are a total of four behavior- complex buying behavior, dissonance-reducing buying behavior, habitual buying behavior and variety- seeking buying behavior. Complex buying behavior is when an individual purchase high value product and they normally seek a lot information before making a purchase. Dissonance-reducing buying behavior occurs when consumers are highly involved but little significant differences. Consumers are highly involved with expensive and infrequent products but little different between brand. For example, buying diamond that is little perceived significant in brand.

Habitual buying behavior is when consumer have low involvement and little significant brand differences. Individual with this behavior will by products out of habit such as newspaper. Variety-seeking behavior occurs when consumer have low involvement and significant brand differences. Individual in this category likes shopping around and trying different products. Our product- Adidas Deep Energy deodorant is under this behavior. Competitive market is so strong that Adidas have to manufacture good quality products that are affordable.