THE CASE OF WRONG SEGMENTATION!!
Saurabh Mitra is a fresh graduate from the Institute of Mass
Communication. He also possesses a master's degree in Marketing
Management from Mumbai University. It was through campus recruitment that
Saurabh was picked up by Doras Pharmaceuticals, a reputed company, having a
large market share in many OTC products. The main among these is a
fairness cream named Snowhite and an ointment for burns and cuts branded
“SBurns” i.e. Stopburns.
The company has an all-India presence and plans to soon launch a
pain balm - cum - cold rub named D’Cold. D’cold would be in straight
competition with “Vicks Vaporub” and “Amrutanjan”.
Shri Manoj Singh, the company’s marketing manager, dreams to make
D’cold a leading brand. He has contracted Admagic the country’s no. 1
advertising agency to handle the account of Dcold.
When Saurabh joined Doras he was included in the Marketing team of
D’cold. Looking at Saurabh’s qualifications, and interests he was given the
task of liaison with the advertising agency Admagic. After a series of
meetings between Saurabh and the Account Executive of Admagic, in a few
of which Mr. Singh was also present, it was decided to position D’cold
towards the adult segment of the market since all the three of them believed
that the requirements of the adult segment of the pain balm market were
different from those of the children. They were also convinced that D’cold
had all the ingredients to meet the requirements of the adult segment of the
market.
Accordingly, the first advertising campaign of D’cold was released in
July 1999 to the media. The company decided to concentrate on TV and the
national press to reach its target customers. The TV spots showed D cold
being used on the father of a family who is down with cold and body ache.
The focus of the advertising was on the punch line Bado ka cold rub . The
timing of launching D’cold was perfect since the rainy season was
considered a boom period for cold rubs.
The initial results were very encouraging and by the end of the rainy
season, D’cold had already become a brand to reckon with. After the
rainy season, Admagic proposed to change the campaign, and accordingly
a new campaign was prepared. While the TV spots showed a young mother
using D’cold on her school-going child the earlier punch line was entirely
missing.
Saurabh was not very happy with the TV spots as he felt that the new
campaign went against the earlier positioning of D’cold. This, he felt, would
confuse the buyers and the advantage of the positioning strategy would be
lost. Since Mr. Singh was very happy with the new advertisements Saurabh
decided to keep silent.
1. Evaluate D’cold’s segmentation strategy.
2. Do you agree with Saurabh’s opinion on the new advertisements?
3. What would you do if you were in Saurabh’s place?
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