Submitted to:

 Ma’am Tanzila Karim

Group Members:
 Aimen Butt (BSF1600334)
 Areeba Iftikhar (BSF1600168)
 Asima Tahir (BSF1600316)
 Iqra Arshad (BSF1600403)
 MairaWaheed (BSF1600480)
Topic : Case study of Samsung Marketing
 Case study

Introduction

It is an interesting case of Samsung; to reposition its brand in the Canada market. The
task was given to J.S Park, a president of Samsung Electronics for Canada division to
come up with the unique and concrete strategy to establish Samsung as a premium
brand for the targeted high-end customers in Canada. The challenge was to reposition
Samsung from the brand of low-to-mid market consumer electronics and IT products
into high-premium-edge electronics with its innovation towards digital technology. In
order to decide on the right strategy, he needs to decide on the changes to be made in
the company’s pricing, advertising and promotion, product line and distribution
channels; with implications of changing various areas.There are lot many challenges that
Park has to face to transform the brand positioning (CUSTOMER-FOCUSED BRAND
POSITIONING, 2006) of Samsung, while not causing the declining in sales of low-end
products and also without affecting the losses in existing marketing mix of the company.
Although the company has spent million dollars in the aggressive promotion to launch
high-end products, consumers still perceive as and relate to the old brand of Samsung.
J.S. Park, president of Samsung, Canada needed to develop an effective branding
strategy to reinforce the presence of ‘Samsung redefined brand’ into the premium
group of customer electronics.

SITUATION ANALYSIS

The analysis will give the direction as to what right strategy should be used in order to
reposition the brand in Canadian Market.SWOT describes the strengths and weaknesses
within the company and opportunities and threats in the external environment of target
market.

Strengths

Samsung has an efficient R&D department employing 17,000 researchers. The company
invests 7% of its revenue in R&D.It has a wide variety of product lines to serve the
market at every level.The company’s strength lies in its continuous innovations; which
gives way to developing leading technologies in the electronics market.It has a unique
expertise in the areas of memory chips and visual displays over its competitors; which
costs 90% of the most digital devices in the market.The brand offers a wide range of
products; giving consumers no option to switch to other brands for the related
products.The effective and lean decision- making process of Samsung gives it
anadvantage of first mover to launch its product extensions in no time. This is because
of fast approvals on the new products to be launched, budget allocation, marketing
plans.The effective marketing strategies of Samsung make it a known brand in a shorter
timeframe in the market.

Weaknesses

Samsung is swinging in confusion with its brand image not yet clear for premium and
low end products.The margin to retailers on sales is quite high which further affect the
revenue of the company.The consumers still associate Samsung to its low-end product
line.The brand has not been able to encash on its subsidiaries; the focus is majorly on
electronics and information technology product line.Excessive dependence of Samsung
on its extensions: electronics, finance and trade & services.

Opportunities

The brand could be established dramatically for “digital technology”, which is the
expertise of Samsung over others.The market is open in terms of no leader as such in
the Canadian market of consumer electronics. So Samsung stands a better chance if
they grab the opportunity and come up with innovative high-end products.The target
market of Canada is less price-sensitive and admires high-end technological products
even if they have to pay more for it.The market could be captured widely by servicing
the clients well and assisting them in terms of after-sales service.They demand for the
complimentary return policies on the purchased products.The third highest broadband
usage is in the target market of Canada and consumers are greatly tech-savvy.

Threats

The biggest threat to the company is from well-established giant, “Sony” in the Canada
market.The decision of Best Buy to acquire Future Buy gives a new threat from the local
retail brand of Canada.The image of the mass vendors of providing heavy discounts
could hamper Samsung premium positioning of its products in the market.The
competition from other electronic brands; like Korean, Chinese, Japanese and European
products are also available at a much cheaper price and at easy availability on local retail
shops.

Customer Analysis

The buyers in the market are less sensitive to pricing and take high price synonymous
with high quality products. They associate brand with better after-sales service and
favorable return policies. With the high education rate, people are tech-savvy and adapt
quickly to innovations and new technologies.

Issues
What does the brand stand for in the minds of the customers? Can the firm deliver on the
promise of the brand idea? How to build brand equity and what would be the right brand
elements for repositioning the brand. (Brown, 2010)

The major issue was the perception of the consumers in North America and European market
for the Samsung brand. Their insight to brand was of a follower rather than a leader in its
innovation for new technologies in the market. This further raised a number of issues to the
management in order to launch the high-end product line to the consumers.

In order to deal with this issue, the company had to think on solving a number of related issues;
how much is this brand positioning going to cost the company because of the stable market of
Sony, Philips and Nokia with the approx. brand value of 13.90, 4.56 and 29.97 respectively.

What changes are required to be made in the marketing mix of the company? (the marketing
process, 2010) The Samsung could not stop from selling low-end items which generated
marginal revenue for the brand but was acting as a block to repositioning shift to high-end
products. The total annual sales figures of 2002 shows that the products like Data storage,
conventional television, appliances had average SECA margin of 2-5%, 5-10% and 2-5%
respectively. So it was beneficial for the company to get continue with these lines from revenue
perspective but threat to the brand repositioning in the long run.

The distribution strategies of brand involved the issue of choosing the online or the traditional
retail chain to market and sell the brand in the market.

“Often the brand is perceived less valuable with its reduced cost” was the idea behind raising
the prices in the Canada market after the R&D of the marketers, in order to reposition the
products to premium category. On the contrary the price increase estimate by 5% and 10%
shows decline in the sales volume for different products. (Digital Televisions: -5 (5%); -15
(10%)). These contradictory perceptions of the consumers for the low and high-end products in
the same market of Canada gave rise to the “pricing” issue for the product line of the brand
Samsung.

Recommendations

In order to resolve the issues related to repositioning of the brand in Canada, the brand needs
to enhance the brand value by creating its brand identity. The Samsung needs to redefine its
brand to achieve the focal position as set by the company for its brand.

This could be done through establishing an effective brand strategy. Samsung should pay more
attention to the establishment of a better image for its high end products in terms of quality,
design and innovation. Brand assessment should be used as a tool to measure the strength of
the brand followed by brand assessment reporting to the stakeholders of the company
(Roberts, 2011). And on the basis of the reporting, brand research should be carried out. The
exploration will give acumens into brand Naming and Brand Architecture to be used by
Samsung; and then the Brand Positioning for Samsung should be taken care thereafter. The
company should focus primarily on the major high-end brand and detach from the other brands
considering the long run benefits than the current marginal revenues through these product
lines.

The elements of Brand Identity should be stabled. Typography, Logo Design, colour palettes and
Imagery should all be well defined in a Brand Identity Manual. Samsung can standardize its
caller tune and tones for all the telecommunication product lines, which could be useful for the
brand identity. The association of the brand as innovative, music and movies, reliable, premium
category is important for its repositioning strategy (McLaughlin, 2011).

The company should go on Brand indemnities. This includes brochures, magazines, signage,
presentations, and case studies to acknowledge their performance among the target audience.

The company should then focus on the brand promotions; launch of the product in the market
via press release and banners across Canada. Sales promotions could be used at the initial stage
to boost up the sales of newly launched product. The company needs to understand the
importance of brand asset management by the internal as well the external people who are
involved in the creation and management of the brand.

Brand valuation and brand Protection are two important aspects that are need to be taken care
of, by the company in order to have the right strategy implemented in a long run. So it’s
necessary to evaluate the brand time to time via survey to maintain the competitiveness and
protect the brand in terms of its logo, name, and trademark from the competitors. Brand
training could also be an effective to tool for the employees to understand and respect the
brand identity. This would ultimately help in efficient and effective working towards building of
the brand in the market.

The promotional budget should be increased enabling the company to get popular Canadian
athletes to do the promotions and advertisements for the product.

The prices for the premium or the high-end products should be increased while sticking to the
low pricing strategy for low-end products. The company needs to decide and accordingly serve
the segmented market accordingly.

Implementation

The team under JS Park would be responsible to implement the suggested elements in the
Canadian market. They need to coordinate with the marketing and finance department in order
to decide on the promotion budget and then the allocation of the same to the various
promotional tools.The company to follow the traditional retail distribution channel and also
launch its own online website to market and distribute its brands in the market.

The suggested changes and additions to products, price, promotion and distribution channels to
be implemented in another 8 months from the date of its proposal.

The measurement of the implementation will be based on the rankings as conducted by

business week magazine and other recognized online polls for the Canadian market.

QUESTIONS:
1. How to build brand equity?
2. what would be the right brand elements for repositioning the brand?
3. How much is this brand positioninng going to cost the company because of the stable
market of Sony, Philips and Nokia with the approx. brand value of 13.90, 4.56 and 29.97
respectively
4. Does the brand need an increased promotinal budged in order to increase brand
awareness in the market.

ANSWERS:

1. In order to resolve the issues related to repositioning of the brand in Canada, the brand
needs to enhance the brand value by creating its brand identity. The Samsung needs to
redefine its brand to achieve the focal position as set by the company for its brand.
This could be done through establishing an effective brand strategy. Samsung should
pay more attention to the establishment of a better image for its high-end products in
terms of quality, design and innovation.Brand assessment should be used as a tool to
measure the strength of the brand followed by brand assessment reporting to the
 stakeholders of the company. And on the basis of the reporting, brand research should
be carried out
2. The elements of Brand Identity should be stabled. Typography, Logo Design, colour
palettes and Imagery should all be well defined in a Brand Identity Manual. Samsung can
standardize its caller tune and tones for all the telecommunication product lines, which
could be useful for the brand identity. The association of the brand as innovative, music
and movies, reliable, premium category is important for its repositioning strategy
(McLaughlin, 2011).The company should go on Brand indemnities. This includes
brochures, magazines, signage, presentations, and case studies to acknowledge their
performance among the target audience.
3. In order to maintain the cost for brand positioning we will suggest to do collaboration
with other well known brands that already accepted in Canada market and within the
people. This will not only give our company a good advertisment but also help to lower
the cost. Both brands will spend the capital and earn profit. Capital can be raise from
issuing additional share in Canada with better profit policies to promote the brand
further and collect finance.
4. The brand budget should be increased enabling the commpany to get popular Canadian
athletes to do the promotions and advertisments for the product. The prices for the
premium or the high-end products should be increased while sticking to the low
strategy for low-end pproducts. The company needs to decide and accordingly serve the
segmented market accordingly.