Discuss about the International Business for Sony and Dove Firms.
This report aims at providing information related to the marketing strategies used by two firms namely Sony and Dove to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals. These companies have used different marketing strategies such as viral marketing, advertising by the use of new technology in order to reach large number of customers so as to achieve high profits. Besides this, these companies have also implemented different campaigns in order to attract specific target group. Implementation of different advertising campaigns facilitates in increasing the brand equity and attains high profits. It also results in attainment of advantage over their rivals which in turn results in increasing their market share (Zimmerman and Blythe, 2013).
Nowadays, rapid changes in the preferences of customers lead to adopt different target marketing approaches by the companies in order to fulfill the demands of their customers. This leads to an increase in the customer base of the company and thereby its sales and profitability. In addition to this, companies also focuses on introducing new marketing strategies or modify the existing marketing strategies in order to gain advantage over its rivals. This is because due to emergence of globalization, there is an increase in the number of competitors in the market for similar products. Companies need to adopt new and modify the existing strategies, processes for the purpose of achieving sustainability in the market (Hutt and Speh, 2012).
Sony Corporation was founded in the year 1946 and offer different electronic equipments such as LCD televisions, headphones, memory based portable audio devices and video cameras. Along with this, it is also engaged in the production and manufacturing of animated motion pictures and so on. The company also offers DVDs, Blu-ray discs, CD and so on (Yahoo Finance, 2016).
There is a presence of intense competition in the electronic equipment industry. The major competitors of Sony include TEAC, Philips and Panasonic. These companies have large number of product ranges for the purpose of attracting large number of customers. It is essential for the company to execute different successful marketing strategies for the purpose of attaining competitive advantage. The company has implemented viral marketing campaign for its different products such as Net MD Walkman, Atrac CD Walkman in the year 2003 which helps in reminding customers of the products of Sony (Dobele, Toleman and Beverland, 2005).
The viral marketing is executed by the use of humour music in different out of character situation in order to make a reminder for customers. This helps in attracting large number of customers. The company has also introduces a new feature in its website named as email a friend. This helps existing customers to provide information related to the products of the company to potential customers. A short movie is introduced by the company for promoting its products through artificial intelligence. The film was being promoted three months prior to the release date for the purpose of creating curiosity among customers. This has resulted in the increase in the number of customers (Dobele, Toleman and Beverland, 2005).
On the release of the movie million of customers have engaged into approximately 3000000 sessions. Besides this, at the opening of the film there is a sale of $30 million which have reached to $236 million with a budget of $90 million (Dobele, Toleman and Beverland, 2005). Along with this, in the year 1998, Sony has also published movie on billboards by spending $ 125 million and $200 million to make it summer blockbuster and a hit respectively. Sony has around 250 marketing partners that spent around $150 million for licensing rights to Godzilla T-shirts, buses, buttons, TV and radio. The company has its sales approximately $175 million by marketing Godzilla (Kotler, 2002). The execution of marketing campaigns has resulted in an increase in the profits to 1315000 thousand in the year 2016 (Yahoo Finance, 2016).
The vision of Dove is to provide different beauty solutions to women as beauty act as source of confidence. Therefore, it facilitates in the development of positive relationship with them with regard to their looks and results in increasing their self esteem (Dove, 2016). Besides this, in order to differentiate the product from the rivals Dove has implemented a new campaign that emphasize on social change. The name of the campaign is Campaign for Real Beauty that focuses on opposing restrictive feminine beauty standards. It emphasizes on promotion of democratic view of beauty. This has been made by fat activist organizations and Toronto based grassroots. This targets feminine beauty ideals like Pretty, Porky and Pissed off (PPPO) (Johnston and Taylor, 2008).
This is a type of comparative approach used by the company in order to exhibit the different uses of the products. It entails information that the beauty products offered by the company provide treatment for different skin types. The company portrays the interviews conducted with different PPPO members in order to provide real evidences of good results achieved by those members. This helps in building loyalty among existing customers and attracting new customers which in turn results in increasing the profits of the company (Johnston and Taylor, 2008).
In addition to this, such type of advertisements reminds customers of the particular product to be used in specific condition. Women are very conscious about their beauty so they are attracted by such advertisements or promotions and eager to use such products (Johnston and Taylor, 2008). The information can be collected from two sources i.e. primary sources of data collection and secondary sources of data collection. This report exhibits information collected from secondary sources of data collection as the information is collected from available published sources. The information is collected from different sources such as journal articles, official websites, and books (Axinn and Pearce, 2006).
Viral marketing executed by Sony facilitates in providing and spreading information to large number of customers. The customers of the company has spread positive word of mouth to their relatives, friends and other individuals which has resulted in an immense increase in the number of potential customers. This has led to attain a competitive advantage over its rivals such as Panasonic despite of the fact that these companies have introduced wide ranges of products. This has also results in increased market share (Kalpan and Haenlein, 2011). The feature of email a friend on the website help customers to provide information related to the product and its satisfaction level to another potential customer helps in increasing the customer base of the company. This is because if a customer is fully satisfied only then the positive message will be forwarded to another potential customer and thereby helps in increasing the sales of the company (Kalpan and Haenlein, 2011).
Along with this, the company is able to achieve credibility as customers become loyal and helps in increasing its brand loyalty. Such feature also helps in increasing the traffic on the website for the purpose of gaining information related to the product such as features, color, advantages, quality, price and different promotional offers. This results in increasing the chances of purchase by the potential customer. Increase in the customer base results in increasing the sales and profits of the company. Along with this, the feature of email a friend also helps in increasing the reach to customers as customers from other countries can also get knowledge about the product and make order from the website (Bruyn and Lilien, 2008).
The comparative approach adopted by Dove has led to increase in the customer base as the campaign portrays the benefits gained by the women who have used the product. This has also resulted in increasing the credibility of the product offered by the company. The company have targeted women as they are beauty conscious. The comparison between different skin types and its positive results to those women persuade potential customers to buy the product. In this manner, there is an increase in the number of customers. Along with this, the campaign also portrays the feedback received from existing customers while interviews conducted with them also helps in attracting large number of customers. It helps in persuading them to buy and use the product (Applegate and Johnsen, 2007).
Conclusion
It can be concluded that nowadays companies emphasizes on implementing different marketing strategies for achieving competitive advantage over its rivals. In this report the successful marketing strategies adopted by Sony and Dove is revealed that helps them to attain competitive advantage. Sony has adopted viral marketing in order to promote its products and gain an advantage over its rivals such as Philips and Panasonic. Along with this, the company has introduced email a friend feature which is used as a viral marketing method in which satisfied customers recommend the product to potential customers. This in turn helps in increasing the customer base of the company. It has resulted in a $30 million sale in the year 2003 which has increased to $236 million in the upcoming years. It has also summarized that adoption of comparative approach in the campaign for beauty by Dove has also resulted in increasing the number of customers as it provides information or feedback obtained from interviewing PPPO members regarding improvement in their glow.
References
Applegate, E. and Johnsen, A. (2007) Cases in Advertising and Marketing Management: Real Situations for Tomorrow’s Managers. Rowman & Littlefield.
Axinn, W.G. and Pearce, L.D. (2006) Mixed Method Data Collection Strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Bruyn, A.D. and Lilien, G. (2008) A multi-stage model of word-of-mouth influence through viral marketing. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 25, pp.151-163.
Dobele, A., Toleman, D. and Beverland, M. (2005) Controlled infection! Spreading the brand message through viral marketing. Business Horizons, 48, pp.143-149.
Dove. (2016) Our Vision. [Online]. Available from: https://www.dove.com/in/stories/about-dove/our-vision.html [Accessed on: 5 December 2016].
Hutt, M.D. and Speh, T.W. (2012) Business Marketing Management: B2B. Cengage Learning.
Johnston, J. and Taylor, J. (2008) Feminist Consumerism and Fat Activists: A Comparative Study of Grassroots Activism and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. Chicago Journals, 33(4), pp. 941-966.
Kalpan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2011) Two hearts in three-quarter time: How to waltz the
Kotler, P. (2002) A framework for Marketing Management. Pearson Custom Publishing.
social media/viral marketing dance. Business Horizons, 54, pp. 253-263.
Yahoo Finance. (2016) Sony Corporation. [Online]. Available from: https://au.finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=SNE [Accessed on: 5 December 2016].
Zimmerman, A. and Blythe, J. (2013) Business to Business Marketing Management: A Global Perspective. Routledge.
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