Customer Confusion
Prior to the 2008 rebranding efforts, RadioShack's primary target customer was the hardware hobbyist, who enjoyed DIY projects-this group was known as the Maker Community. These core customers were typically males aged 25-40 years. RadioShack's customer focus on the Maker Community allowed hobbyists to find parts and valuable employee knowledge from RadioShack-this focus differentiated the brand from larger Electronics retailers. With the rising popularity of CB Radios and Personal Computers, RadioShack's target customer slowly shifted from the Maker Community to the general public. Net positive brand associations, made by the Maker Community, helped form RadioShack's brand image as the "tutor", helping inexperienced customers
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finding the right cell-phone with their guidance) to every single customer. Unfortunately, this created numerous negative brand associations from loyal hobbyist customers, who viewed this shift as abandonment, breaking almost hundred-year old brand promises. The most notable negative association-RadioShack was trapped in the 1980s-was exacerbated by its obsession as a mass-marketer, since the brand failed to update strategies to address confusions. A deadly problem emerged: RadioShack's customers were confused, and the brand itself did not understand customers. Bloomberg's pedestrian interview displayed this customer confusion: almost all respondents failed to explain what customer value was provided by the brand. RadioShack's mass-marketing obsession failed to help determine customer needs, as many of their brand measurement efforts focused on measuring brand awareness. Often, the problem was not brand unawareness; customers simply no longer viewed RadioShack as the brand to resolve problems, and loyal customers no longer supported positive subjective brand associations (e.g. innovative, affordability, convenience) about the brand. Disastrously, RadioShack's brand strategies confused customers about basic objective associations, such as
If we refer to products, people often take them as the things we get from suppliers with a price. Apparently, this is a definition from the perspective of exchanges and does not quite catch the essence of the meaning of product in the marketing discipline. In this regard, Rothschild (2009) offered a probably better definition for products as a bundle of benefits for customers. This definition also offers an important perspective for JB Hi-Fi to understand its products. Because after all, JB Hi-Fi is only a retailer and all its home theatre products are sourced from their manufacturers. If JB Hi-Fi only sees its products as the tangible parts, it may miss out the very important parts of the competition. However, if JB Hi-Fi sees the product as a bundle of benefits it can offer to its customers, the tangible part is only part of this bundle. There is much more for JB Hi-Fi to offer to improve the benefits to customers, and at the same time differentiate itself from its competitors.
In Chuck E. Cheese's Latest Tune: an Ode to Millennial Moms, the author, Craig Giammona, describes how Chuck E. Cheese is using target-marketing skills to reach a certain demographic. Giammona illustrates how the firm must reach the parents as well as the children because it is the parents who are actually taking their children to the facilities. Chuck E. Cheese’s new target market is based on age and family lifecycle, as discussed in lecture for chapter eight. Our generation, Millennials, is just recently becoming parents, and marketing to them is still a learning process.
In relation to this case, Target Corporation depicts a brand personality among its target audience. Target Corp. is considered as the retail store that caters to the younger and more educated and well-off clientele as to compare with its rival. In a survey conducted, Target Corp. shoppers fall on a 46 years old age median, mostly female, have children at home, and attended or completed college (Target Corporate Facts, 2006). Thus, the target market is perceived to be sophisticated. However, with the corporate values the corporation applies, the brand personality serves as one of its distinguishing pro.
These customers are the ones that continue to buy Apple products and constantly purchase the newer models of the product as soon as they debut. Technology is an industry where the consumer needs to have the newest, innovative product to keep up with an ever-changing world.
The primary target market for satellite radio should consist of adults ages 25-50. These are customers that make most money and will be willing to pay extra for the quality entertainment service. This target market can also be divided into the smaller segments. The key segments are:
Driving innovation around key styles and innovative consumer-focused technologies, Skullcandy is bouncing back, with an 18% increase in sales in 2014, after several years of decline. However, the issue following with the change is simply that compared with other competitors like Bose and Beats which have clear product identities, Skullcandy has too many styles without clear differentiation or stories. It creates an image for consumers that Skullcandys offers “so many choice of Domino pizza” which is essentially an inferior good. Clearly, if Skullcrushers wants to be the model for the future and to maintain a diversified product offering, they have to
RadioShack Corporation's reputation suffered in the past due to an ill-managed company-wide layoff that utilized e-mail to notify employees of their termination. The poor communication choices used while handling the mass layoffs brought national attention to RadioShack. Many people found e-mail a dehumanizing method to inform the employees that they were being terminated (RadioShack, 2006). The current share price of $13.21 for RadioShack indicates that the corporate turnaround implemented by the CEO at the time of the layoffs, Julian Day, was not successful (RSH, 2011). Due to the changes in economy and corporate strategy it is impossible to assign total blame to the e-mail layoffs as the culprit in the waning success of RadioShack. Yet the national coverage of this event and the surprised response it elicited from management specialists indicate that this was not a popular decision (RadioShack, 2006). To regain a favorable public opinion RadioShack needs to mitigate the damage that has already occurred from this decision and integrate policies and procedures that prevent situations such as these from occurring again.
Telecommunications gained mainstream attention in the early 90’s; however the initial key market was business men and women, who used their phones whilst being on the move and so allowing them to communicate with their companies with ease. Though in the modern era, telecommunication went through segmentation in the market trends, and now in this day and age it would be difficult to find someone who does not own some form of mobile technology. Many phone providers battle to provide the best service for their customers (Figure 1).
Unlike computers, it not only gives people access to information, it also gives them a voice. At Nokia, customers really do stand out in front of other stakeholders. Nokia focuses on people and tries to make technology that is down to what people really need. It was customers’ tastes that drove Nokia to the ground when it forgot to listen. The target group did not change and Nokia wants to deliver to customers who value longevity. It was Nokia who made mobile phones accessible to masses with combining good technology and design (Bhatt, 2002). Cheerful ringtones and colourful back covers are still a trademark of the Nokia phone. Nokia always had the ability to generate loyal customers by performing at everything they do. This effort does not go unnoticed and customers are returning to the revived Nokia brand. Undoubtedly, the de-layered company will no longer hesitate to bring the customers the newest technology far ahead of its
There is a slowdown in sales of mobile handsets, in some markets like the UK, as the mature part of the product lifecycle is reached. Customers are exposed to a barrage of different images and messages by mobile phone companies, as the competition gets tougher. Vodafone appeals to new customers and aims to keep its existing ones by emphasising the uniqueness of the brand.
"While practically everybody today is a potential mobile phone customer, everybody is simultaneously different in terms of usage, needs, lifestyles, and individual preferences," explains Nokia's Media Relations Manager, Keith Nowak. Understanding those differences requires that Nokia conduct ongoing research among different consumer groups throughout the world. The approach is reflected in the company's business strategy:
in this segment are often brand conscious and enjoy the latest fads and trends. They...
Almost every industry has conformed; using cell phones as a conduit for their message subsequently raking in sales in the billions. On-demand video streaming applications like Netflix and HBO Go, Movies and TV shows can now be viewed in the palm of your hands and music can be streamed with just a swipe. Case in point, music streaming apps like Spotify have over forty-four million active users. With this app available on all major operating systems, allows its users to discover new music by suggesting songs and artists for your listening pleasure all over a wireless connection. The Spotify app even allows its users to search for their favorite singer, genre or song, skip through selections they don 't like, read lyrics and check for concert tickets. Even in the gaming world, phones have bit off a large piece of the pie making it possible for smaller companies to impact the market. The ever-improving graphics and impressive processors that these phones are built with contributes to its performance making mobile gaming that much enjoyable. This is true for the best selling mobile platform game - Angry Birds. To date, they have over one billion downloads, half of those downloads being in the last six months alone! They’ve grossed approximately one hundred and six million dollars in revenue and even branched out into producing collectibles, creating a household name for themselves. It’s plain to see that the
The year is 2014, the markets are changing constantly, and they always have to meet the needs of new consumers as well as old consumers. Mobile telephones have been in the retail and wholesale business for quite some time, and are only evolving from here on out. There are things that these cell phones can bring us that are major benefits in our everyday lives. Cell phones bring us maps, radios, address books, and even flashlights now. Cell phones have taken shape from a huge portable device to a more convenient thin device that can fit in your pocket. With time in any consumer market, the consumer adapts to the technology that makes their life easier. The constant innovation of cell phones has led us to smart phones, and these smart phones are capable of putting certain businesses out of the market. Businesses that engineered PDAs in the past were met with challenges because smart phones are able to match their productivity. Land lines have become useless since everyone can afford a mobile device now. Listening to music has also switched from a traditional CD Player/MP3 Player to an everyday smart phone.
Nevertheless, one of the most important constants among all of us, regardless of our differences, is that, above all, we are buyers. We use or consume on a regular basis food, clothing, shelter, transportation, education, equipment, vacations, necessities, luxuries, services, and even ideas. As consumers, we play an essential role in the health of the economy; local, national and international. The purchase decision we make affect the requirement for basic raw materials, for transportation, for production, for banking; they affect the employment of employees and the growth of resources, the successfulness of some industries and the failure of others. In order to be successful in any business and specifically in today’s dynamic and rapidly evolving marketplace, marketers need to know everything they can about consumers; what they are want, what they are think, how they are work, how they are spend their leisure time. They have to find out the personal and group influences that affect consumer decisions and how these decisions are made. In these days of ever-widening media choices, they need to not only identify their target audiences, but they have to know where and how to reach