Case based essay-Phillips Seafood free essay sample

In this case, Ron Birch, product manager for the new pasteurized king crab of Phillips Foods, needs to make a decision for the phase II of launch of king crab. He planned to continue the magazine strategy used in phase l, but Cherry Stockworth, vice- president of marketing of Phillips Foods, recommended him to use the budget to support half of cost of International Boston Seafood Show. According to the information given in this case, I dont think this is an either-or choice, and my recommendation for Ron Birch is to decrease the cost of ads in trade magazines, hange the content of ads in magazines before and after the IBSS, and support the IBSS in March SWOT Analysis of King Crab of Phillips related to Trade Show Before analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of two strategies, I would like to conduct a SWOT analysis of king crab, because making a suitable strategy for king crab required us to understand the current situation first. Strength: Phillips is a well- known company which has 14 plants around the world. The economies of scale could help Phillips decrease production cost, and the save from production could be used in marketing campaign. The new product, king crab, of Phillips has enough appeal to customers because of publicity of media such as the Discovery Channel, which would subsequently attract business customers. Phillipss king crab have an 18-month long shelf time with pasteurization, which could also benefit the buyers because of less pressure to sell it in a short time period. Furthermore, Phillips operates all plants itself, and the products using pasteurization wont need any additive and preservatives, which could be used to persuade the retailers or foodservice buyers the quality and safety of its food. Weakness: Pasteurization king crab is an innovative product, but according to the current situation, Phillips only has limited budget for launch of king crab. The launch of new product is risky. If the budget is limited, the effect of marketing activities cant be ensured. Opportunity: U. S. eafood market grew rapidly in recent years, and the biggest part of seafood sales is fresh seafood, which is 54% of all seafood retail sales. The king crab of Phillips belongs to fresh seafood, which means it has huge market potential. Customers tend to buy food that is easy- cooked and fresh, which is a feature of the king crab product. The IBSS is a nation- wide trade show which could attract a lot of exhibitors and attendance. Making use of this platform could help Phillips to build its reputation and promote its products at the same time. Threat: Just because the IBSS could attract a large amount of exhibitors, the competition during the trade show is fierce. Though there are so many potential customers would appear at the trade show, how could Phillips beat the competitors and attracts enough customers to its booth. Another threat for king crab is the possible rejection of the retailers because they would feel risky to replace an ld product with a new product. Pros and Cons of Alternative Strategies Trade advertising strategy Pros: Trade magazine is one of the most important sources for decision-makers and they will spend relatively long time in reading magazines. This strategy would cost less than trade show strategy and would reach broader potential customers. Cons: Effectiveness for brand building and lead generation of ads on magazines are 50. 2% d 47 4%, lower than ettectiveness ot trade snow, which are rate of readers call Phillips for more information is 0. 3%, which is equal to the verage rate, which means ads on magazines didnt give Phillips a significant competitive advantage. Trade show strategy Pros: During the trade show, Phillips could have chance to show how fantastic the king crab is. Obviously, looking at the huge legs and crab and tasting the king crab would be more persuasive than seeing the image on industry magazines. After trying this new product, the power of word-of-mouth is immeasurable. Compared to managers seeing ads on magazines, attendances who are interested in king crab could immediately gain more information from the sales person and discuss about he deal, which could lessen time to close the deal with a lower unit sales cost. By the way, time is money too. Cons: Spend a large amount of money in a 3 days trade show is risky. IBSS is a large scale trade show which would attracts more than 800 exhibitors, so the competition during the trade show would be very fierce. Return on investment would be a concern of managers in Phillips. Recommendation and Reasoning According to the SWOT analysis, king crab is a great product with high quality, safety, good taste, long shelf time and big market potential. Thus, if there is a chance to ntroduce this product to a potential customer, making a deal is not so difficult. Therefore, the core problem becomes how can Phillips reach as many as potential customers. Based on alternatives evaluation, if Phillips ended the ads on industry magazines to support IBSS, the exposure of Phillips would decrease rapidly. Managers may not even know that Phillips is an exhibitors in IBSS, which would make Phillips lose chance to persuade a number of potential customers face to face. However, if Phillips continues to make ads on magazines only, it will lose a big pportunity to show and detailedly introduce king crab to the potential customers, among which are some potential customers didnt notice the ads before. My recommendation is to combine the two strategies. Choosing the magazine with highest percentage and number of seafood buyers, seafood business, decreasing the ads pages from 12 to 2, and supporting half of the cost of IBSS. Before the trade show started, the ads should focus on informing readers that Phillipss location in IBSS and the great king crab it would bring to there to attracts customers directly to Phillips booth in IBSS. Fewer pages wouldnt influence a lot because readers spend enough time on magazine which means they wont miss any information they interested in. After the trade show, because of the reputation built during the show, Phillipss popularity would be improved. Thus, some buyers who heard about Phillips because of word-of-mouth may try to find ads of Phillips to know more about king crab. This strategy would establish a positive cycle. Trade show and ads on industry magazines attracts potential customers for each other, and the information from these two media supplement each other.