Integrated Marketing Communication Midterm Exam Feb.

2016
Chic Soap Case Study Answer

Shady Mofid Barty

Group (A)

Q1) who are your target audience?

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Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

TARGET CONSUMER AND TARGET PUBLICATIONS

Every business has a target audience a group of people whose specific needs and desires are
fulfilled by the purchase or use of product or service. These are the people that should be aiming
.to reach when putting together in marketing plan
To determine the right publications and journalists to target should take into account clients
lifestyle choices, hobbies and interests, demographic and aspirations which help give an
.indication of which publications they are likely to read and be influenced by
It is also important to consider the objectives of marketing plan activity. These could be a mix of
sales and enquiry generation, brand awareness or raising brand profile. The publications target
.and stories place should reflect this mix
The main consumer is the working female from 25-45 is the target segment.
Also, the working women from 35-45 according to market research socio-economic group A.
In order to determine the target audience then we need to calculate the selling price, and since the
price elasticity of the premium product sector was fairly low, so the price will range between
1.5$ and 2$.

So we have to calculate the Market at all

Total market of soap = was around 190 million at retail
If we suppose that we will produce 2 million soap bars

Marketing
Sales People

7 (6 for chains & 1

4,000,000 Pounds
84,000 Pounds

Company car
packing
Gift packing

Direct)
7*3000
0.14 per unit*2million
0,45 per unit* 50,000

21,000 Pounds
280,000 Pounds
22,500 Pounds

Fragrance
White base soap
Machine
Staf
Shipment
Site
Var. Cost per unit

unit
0.40 per unit*2million
0.08 per unit*2million
25000
35000
0.5 per kilo
25000+5000
0.02*2million

800,000 Pounds
160,000 Pounds
25,000 Pounds
35,000 Pounds
150,000 Pounds
30,000 Pounds
40,000 Pounds

Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

Total Cost
Total Production & Sales 2 Million Soap Bars*1.5

2,047,500 Pounds
3,100,000 Pounds

(50,000 unit *2Pounds)

Profit

1,052,500 Pounds

2) What is the product benefit that you will be providing?

A product benefit is an advantage or value that our product will offer its buyer. Since benefits
are described from the customers point of view, benefits are solution neutral. Customers buy
benefits.
When we show the benefits of your product, we think of it like telling a story. We want to engage
the audience and leave them feeling an emotional connection. Therefore, we should describe a
scenario in which a feature was beneficial to a person that the target audience can relate to.
We have to connect the benefits of our product with its features in order to proof that our
customers will have an exceptional experience, which will keep in their minds.
How great, natural, organic, amazing!
Chic Soap sets out to incorporate fashionable perfumes such as Obsession, Raffinee and Opium
into a high quality white soap base. The product would then be packaged using the logo of the
perfume plus a Chic Soap
- This is a premium luxury product with premium ingredients with the highest level of customer
service. Buying Chic Luxury Soaps is defiantly an experience.
- We provide a low cost way of giving a gift, which would be appreciated with a very
competitive and relevant price comparing with other gift products.
By using organic Chic soap, you can potentially avoid, or at least reduce, many common skin
problems. Organic Chic soap contains ingredients that have been produced without using
herbicides, chemical fertilizers, or pesticides.
- The all-natural organic substances in Chic soap are easy on sensitive skin.
- An investment in organic Chic soap products is an investment in avoiding toxins harmful to
your skin & to the environment
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Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

- Organic Chic soap products will leave your skin feeling clean & moisturized, and give you the
peace of mind to know that you are doing a good thing for yourself & your family.

3) What are the IMC tools you are intending to use to reach your target audience and why?
(all tools discussed at the lecture should be used).?
In fact, the whole goal of all marketing is to get the right message to the right person at the right
time." As marketers, we also make sure we can do this at the best price possible

Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

To do that we have to create Awareness through our Promotions which are considered all of the
methods of communication that a marketer may use to provide information to different parties
about the product
A considerable amount of promotion focuses on creating awareness. For any organization,
making customers aware of the product is crucial to initiating the product adoption process.
Five-stage mental process all prospective customers go through from learning of a new product
to becoming loyal customers or rejecting it. These stages are
- Awareness: prospects come to know about a product but lack sufficient information about it
- Interest: they try to get more information.
- Evaluation: they consider whether the product is beneficial.
- Trial: they make the first purchase to determine its worth or usefulness
- Adoption/Rejection: they decide to adopt it, or look for something else
Our role is to create high awareness, and more loyalty from our valuable customers to premium
Chic soap to reach adoption stage
The main competitive products in the premium sector were soaps such as Roger and Gallet,
Penhaligon range, Yardley, Morley and three internationally available premium soaps.
After considering our fixed and variable costs depending on our distribution strategy will be
discussed later- and since the price elasticity of demand is low, our Price will be set a little bit
higher than our competitors. That will help to cover profit margin for our distributer channels
and give more feeling of luxury for our customers since the price and perceived value is higher
than our competitors.
We are intending to reach our valuable customers through different ways:
We will depend on women magazines to reach our primary target audience. Since the product
would be packaged using the logo of the perfume, the Women will fall in love with it. As per our
research, Consumers bought the product primarily on perfume and image rather than any other
product attribute.
Wholesalers, which accounted for about 70 per cent of the market. Many of the independent
chemists were serviced through wholesalers. Wholesalers are servicing large number of highclass customers at larger cities, which is our main target locations. Also as a way of promotion,
we can give free samples as perfumes to the customers who are interested in premium soaps
section
Heavy advertising before Christmas season, which will reflect higher sales trend using our
especial pack of five perfumed soaps. It will be considered a memorable gift especially for
females in relationships.
Five stars restaurants, hotels and resorts. Existence of Chic soap will add more touch of
luxury.
Brand stretching, which is a marketing strategy in which a firm marketing a product with a
well-developed image uses the same brand name in a different product category. In order to
make it a life style for Ladies, we extended our products to all beauty life aspects from Chic soap
to Chic Jewelry, Chic Lingerie, Bags, Accessories, Shoes, etc.
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Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

Social media marketing which is the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social
media sites. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that
attracts attention and encourages readers to share it across their social networks. The resulting
electronic word of mouth (eWoM) refers to any statement consumers share via the Internet (e.g.,
web sites, social networks, instant messages, news feeds) about an event, product, service, brand
or company. When the underlying message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates
because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or
company itself, this form of marketing results in earned media rather than media. Through Social
media, we can encourage our fans to share our products by motivating them. We can ask form
our fans to take a single or group photo at our stores or with our product and the winning photo
will be published at our official page and the winner may take a gift from our products. Giving
daily advices to women fans for their beauty and health. Through our website, customers can
take a tour for our Soap products to take more knowledge about our premium soap. Direct orders
with special prices will be applied
Social media marketing which is the process of gaining website traffic or attention through
social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content
that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it across their social networks. The
resulting electronic word of mouth (eWoM) refers to any statement consumers share via the
Internet (e.g., web sites, social networks, instant messages, news feeds) about an event, product,
service, brand or company. When the underlying message spreads from user to user and
presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed
to the brand or company itself, this form of marketing results in earned media rather than media.
Through Social media, we can encourage our fans to share our products by motivating them. We
can ask form our fans to take a single or group photo at our stores or with our product and the
winning photo will be published at our official page and the winner may take a gift from our
products. Giving daily advices to women fans for their beauty and health. Through our website,
customers can take a tour for our Soap products to take more knowledge about our premiumsoap.
Direct orders with special prices will be applied

Q4)Which distribution channels will be most appropriate?

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Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

Distribution channels are the path through which goods and services travel from the vendor to
the consumer or payments for those products travel from the consumer to the vendor. A
distribution channel can be as short as a direct transaction from the vendor to the consumer, or
may include several interconnected intermediaries along the way such as wholesalers,
distributers, agents and retailers. Each intermediary receives the item at one pricing point and
movies it to the next higher pricing point until it reaches the final buyer.
The distribution channels available for the sale of toilet soaps of various qualities are
Independent chemists, department stores, multiple chemists, supermarkets, e-commerce and
grocers.
As per our market research, we found that:
Premium Soap market share is about 7 % from total Soap market. Since total soap market is
190 million, premium soap market share is about 13,3 million
Huge number of outlets (200000 outlets) made about 20% gross on premium soaps, depend more
on mass production, and premium soaps made up only a small proportion of the market and were
available in a limited number of outlets, which included independent chemists and department
stores.
It will be high cost to depends on these outlets as we in such case will need to hire about 400
sales representative with average salary 12,000 per annum to distribute limited quantities of
premium soap with higher cost in production as variable cost for production decreases for larger
amount of units.
Wholesaler channel will be more appropriate for the flowing reasons:
- Many of the independent chemists were serviced through wholesalers.
- Such wholesalers accounted for about 70 per cent of the market.
- Wholesaler can reach easily to our target customers at larger cities
- Lower cost, as we do not have to hire large number of sale representative. About 5 to 6,
representatives can cover all wholesalers.
- We can produce larger amount of units to decrease our variable cost.

Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

n addition, we will never forget e-commerce as it has low costs and has a direct communication
between our customers and the company with lower cost Huge number of outlets (200000
outlets) made about 20% gross on premium soaps, depend more on mass production, and
premium soaps made up only a small proportion of the market and were available in a limited
number of outlets, which included independent chemists and department stores.
It will be high cost to depends on these outlets as we in such case will need to hire about 400
sales representative with average salary 12,000 per annum to distribute limited quantities of
premium soap with higher cost in production as variable cost for production decreases for larger
amount of units

Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

Q5) How are you intending to support such channels?

Think of a distribution channel as one slice of the overall marketing pie. It is how a company
gets its products or services to the consumers. A channel acts as an important part of the small
business's overall marketing strategy and is one of the Four Ps of marketing -- product,
promotion, price and placement, or distribution. When conducting a marketing analysis, it is
important to take a look at this segment to ensure that we are using the right channels to get the
product to our buyers.
Support and control are critical factors in our distribution strategy. Appointing a manager to work
with distributors enables us to monitor their performance and identify their support needs.
Develop marketing support programs to meet the needs of different channels. Options include
funds for advertising or direct marketing campaigns or templates that enable partners to develop
their own campaigns. If channel sales represent a significant proportion of our business, develop
advertising and marketing campaigns to drive business to our channel partners. Operating a
training program will improve distributors product and marketing knowledge and enable them to
deliver a higher standard of service to customers.

Facilities in payment for wholesalers

(cash discount Long term credit)

Sales Bonus for retailers

Upload every product to the wholesaler site.

engage a wholesaler to our website

Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart

Reference:http://www.penhaligons.com/soap/
http://store.mintel.com/soap-bath-and-shower-products-uk-april-2011?cookie_test=true
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1006958/sector-insight-soap-bath-showerproducts
http://www.ibisworld.co.uk/market-research/soap-detergent-manufacturing.html
www.ciafactbook.com

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Integrated Marketing CommunicationMidterm ExamFeb. 2016

Shady Mofid Bart