Giant Japanese Monster Bad!
-Entrepreneurial Marketing Plan-
Professor Molly Lavik Marketing New Ventures – MBAM 649 December 8, 2005
Henry Chen Michael Kittle Gustavo Garza Salinas Peter Zehngraff
Table of Contents
Title Page Table of Contents New Venture Overview Product Analysis Customer Behavior Trends Target Markets Branding Strategy Tipping Point Campaign HyperCD Promotion Innovative Company Culture Overview Distribution Techniques Budget-Boosting Public Relations Tactics Publicity Stunt Marketing Budget Branding Yourself 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 10 12 14 16 17 18 19 20
2
New Venture Overview
Giant Japanese Monster, Bad! (hereinafter “GJMB”) is a start-up toy company aiming to expand United States market for boutique style designer toys made popular in Japan. Boutique style designer toys have been popular in Japan for some time, and have enjoyed some success in underground U.S. markets. By integrating Americana-inspired designs into the currently limited market, GJMB will expand the market and bring the collecting of designer toys to the average American.
Company Mantra “You Must Collect Them All!”
3
Product Analysis
Designer and boutique style toys are typically characterized by limited production runs (sometimes less than 100 units) or appear as platform toys (a standardized shape, exclusive to each company, decorated with unique designs commissioned by various artists). The designer and boutique style toys that have successfully penetrated the U.S. market are highly influenced by urban culture and graffiti design. Many of the popular boutique style toys imported from Japan are highly influenced by Japanese culture and Kaiju, which refers to the fantasy beasts and monsters popularized in Japanese film and fantasy. GJMB would take the ideas behind the Japanese success and the U.S. underground culture, and meld them with designs currently overlooked by toy manufacturers. GJMB’s toy designs will be primarily inspired by Americana, employing imagery found in early tattoos, pin up girls, hot rod cars and other traditional symbols found in U.S. culture. After finalizing and copyrighting the prototype hand-sculpted platform toy designs, GJMB will introduce the platform line, each of which will be available in several “paints” commissioned by a variety of artists. Initially, the toys will be manufactured from either plaster or resin to minimize costs. GJMB will retain unknown, up and coming artists who demonstrate potential for greatness in order to minimize royalty fees. The new artists will also give GJMB’s toys fresh designs and outlooks currently unavailable to the designer toy market. GJMB will sell its platform toys through blindbox packaging. Boutique style designer toys are sometimes sold in blind-box packaging in which the purchaser does not know exactly which version of the toy they receive until the package is opened. Some versions of the toy will be very common, while others will be very rare or even unique. Collectors must purchase many blind-boxes in order to complete their set of toys. This strategy drives sales and fuels the secondary market as consumers sell off their duplicates obtained as they completed their sets.
4
Customer Behavior Trends
To know your customer behavior trends is very powerful information to have, especially when we are inexperienced at selling to the market. However before we begin talking about the trends we will make a definition of our customers as they are know today.
One think about our customers is that our information about them is very limited. After personal experience, it showed that the target market consumers desire fun, unique, artistic toys that are not mass-produced. The characteristic is that they are well-made and that it will retain collectible value. If we are looking at the demographics/target market trends, we will discover that our customer is the young adults in the age of 15 to 301, with large budgets for discretionary spending on toys. Firsthand experience has showed that the customers are booth men and women and that the younger customers are still living with their parents. In addition to that, high-income families that have a high education are also in the target group. The toys are also targeted collectors in general and to those that appreciate art.
The trends that the team has experienced are that the customers are not price sensitive. The reason for this statement comes from investigation of sales on eBay. Many of the collectors use this online site and it was here that we discovered how the toys were sold almost at once no matter the price. Some of the toys are in so high value, because of its rareness, that collectors will do almost anything to get in hold of it.
The customer behaviour trends also show us that the target customer is mainly located on the Internet. They are especially located on the message boards dedicated to this market, on the various toy websites and the different auctions on the web. To get a better picture of the customer’s behaviour trends the use of the messages board can come in very handy. Here we can get on hand experience from the customers when they discuss
1
Source: First hand experience from toy conventions and intimate knowledge of the Internet massage boards dedicated to this market.
5
which designer toys is the coolest. You can say that the message boards lay down the trends, because the customers here can express their feeling about the products on the market. In other words if we wants to find our more about our customer we have to look more into these virtual communities.
At the moment we do not have a perfect picture of our customer therefore we will make use of the HyperCD2, which we will describe lather in this marketing plan.
2
Source: Ken Park – HyperCD presentation
6
Target Markets
The target Market for GJMB is young adults in the age of 15 to 303, Both men and women. The younger customers are still living with their parents. In addition to that, they or their families have high-income and high education. The toys are also targeted to collectors in general and to those that appreciate art. This is a growing market.
General characteristics and preferences of this customer. Spend a lot of time in Internet Participate in message boards and virtual communities Enjoy Limited Edition Blind-box Packaging it’s a big surprise They like designs and rarity
The current market is composed by: The young adult The toy collector The relative of a collector References “Target Market.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_market Urban Vinyl KGO-TV (San Francisco): 6/1/04. http://www.acfnewsource.org/art/urban_vinyl.html “About Designer Toys.” Daily News. www.vinylpulse.com/ 2005/05/ Leibrock, Rachael. “Not kids play.” http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/v-print/story/8052930p-8987066c.html Littleton, Therese. “Thought Experiments: Invasion of the Vinyl Space Monkeys.” http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0512/Thougthexperiments.shtml
3
Source: First hand experience from toy conventions and intimate knowledge of the Internet massage boards dedicated to this market.
7
Branding Strategy
GJMB’s brand positioning strategy seeks to build up a connection between our products and target market. Our brand positioning would be slightly different in two stages of our company development. At the stage of starting-up, GJMB would position itself as a prompt and quicker fun toys importer. At the mature stage, GJMB would reposition itself as superior toys with unique design provider.
A prompt and quicker fun toys importer: At the start-up stage, the company would like consolidate our position in this market with stable revenue. The company mainly offers the fast and quicker service for target customers to purchase cool Japanese toys online. The company gathers the latest toy information for the public. Our customers can either go to our website for the catalogues, or apply a free membership to receive regular newsletter and catalogues. Due to our customers’ unfamiliarity to the brand, we focus on educating consumers our role in the market and getting exposure to all potential targets.
Superior toys with unique design provider: There is no big name in the current market. Competitors put more efforts on their own niche services. In the long run our company would establish a strong brand name by creating different value propositions to the targets. While the company has considerable and firm financial backing, we would allocate more capitals to create our own designs. Our brand name would strengthen at this stage by the premium products and the image of strong design. Every character and every series of our products has its own story. We not only design cool toys, but also sharing stories of each product to our customers. We wish our customers feel that we know what they like about these toys as we can also be collectors to these products.
When our targets purchase the products, they really like to believe that they are buying a unique and classic toy which the toy value will increase as time goes by. Therefore, consumers’ perception to our brand has great impact on their behavior. Considering that “Emotional relationship positioning emphasizes the feelings of the target market: about the product, about themselves or about others, toward the company’s 8
personality, and about the meaning of the product in their lives.” (The One-Day Marketing Plan Chapter6), our design and brand name are two key factors of success. Offering different toy selections and combinations and creating a leader image in this market help us to make our customers connected with us and to defend the attacks from the competitors.
9
Tipping Point Campaign
A tipping point refers to “that dramatic moment when something unique becomes common.”4 Popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, the phrase “tipping point” was first coined by Morton Grodzins in the 1960s through his descriptions of the “white flight” phenomenon.5 Essentially, a tipping point is the pinnacle of a well-formulated viral marketing strategy. A viral marketing strategy is a marketing techniques that seeks to exploit pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through viral processes similar to the spread of an epidemic. It is word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it harnesses the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.6
GJMP plans to employ a tipping point campaign with the intention to achieve the viral spread of company and product awareness that most companies strive for. Our tipping point campaign begins with our initial business strategy of heavily promoting a very small initial run of our first series of toys. Great efforts will be taken to promote our first products through Internet message boards, websites, emails and at trade shows. The aim of these efforts is to employ Gladwell’s “Law of the Few” by reaching the connectors, mavens and salesmen of the toy collecting market.7 These efforts will create demand for our first line of products that will heavily outweigh the number of products that we will supply the market. This intentional product shortage will spur a serious secondary market for our initial products, primarily on eBay and other Internet trading websites. This secondary market will likely inflate the market price of our first line of toys and further increase demand for our products.
Once the active secondary market for our highly-demanded first line of toys is in place, we will release our second line of toys in greater production numbers. This is where we will experience our tipping point. Collectors will flock to buy our second
4 5
“Tipping Point.” Wikipedia Online. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point Id. 6 “Viral Marketing.” Wikipedia Online. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing 7 Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. p. 30-88.
10
series of toys since they will not want to miss out on our products like they may have with the first line. Also, collectors will not want to miss out on the potential for financial gains in the secondary markets for our products.
11
HyperCD Promotion
It has come to the group’s attention that the use of the HyperCD will and can be very handy for our marketing campaign. What the HyperCD will do is to create a good fundament for video footage on the web. The quality of the video will be in so high quality that the audience will be amazed. Because of the CD it will be possible for anyone, no matter what their internet connection is, to see the powerful functions that the CD can deliver. With it, we can create a “bridge” to the real world, and it will be targeted directly to our audience. The benefits of the CD are that it will guide the audience to our specific website where we have the possibilities to influence the audience behaviour. From here, they are just one click away for ecommerce, which are one of the functionalities of our website. We believe that the HyperCD will come in good hand for the consumer. In section “Customer behaviour trend”, we discovered that the customer heavily used the Internet. Therefore, we see no real barrier of using this product for the customers. The heavily interaction on the message boards gives the felling of interest of knowing what is going on in the community. Therefore, to provide these customers with extra material seems only to come in good hand.
We can say that our CD works as a Digital relation model, where we can provide the audience content and they will give us feedback. In other words, if you listen to my message we will fill your computer with video footage. Our company “Giant Japanese Monster, Bad!” is selling collectors toys and we will use the HyperCD to show the audience who we are and what kind of products we develops. The content of our CD will tell an animated story about our company. Because we know that there is a lot of excitement concerning the design of our toys, we will reveal some of the future toys, that “Giant Japanese Monster, Bad!” will develop. The CD will also give the audience a unique and once in a lifetime opportunity to win the first ever-produced toy made by our company.
We know that our target market has great interest in the design and especially in the designers themselves. Therefore, the HyperCD will give a fairytale history of each of 12
our designers. Each designer belongs to a special “world”, and here they can show and use their creativity. Imagine a world of small cute teddy bears each with their own character, and a horror world with bears with no heads, blood dripping down from the walls.
The main goal of our project is to make more awareness of our brand and to get a more fundamental picture of our customers and their needs. Now we have a very fuzzy picture of our target market. We know that we can find them on message board and forums concerning “cool” toys. However, the HyberCD can reveal some of our questions because of the feedback, which we will be getting. To validate our ideas and the creation of our different designer worlds we can monitor which is the most popular and eliminate others that do not have caught the audience’s attention. Our HyperCD will contain five different movies that can be unlocked each week. Thereby we can follow the traction of each specific movie and thereby make decisions for future marketing campaigns. The company has planned to give out the CD’s at conventions and others that sign up at our normal website. In addition to that, the CD will be distributed to different toy stores and other interested party. To measure the effects of the distribution effect we can follow and track how many that has been on our website.
13
Innovative Company Culture Overview
GJMB is an entertainment company, we want to have FUN at work. Our company culture is important for our success and achievements. We have place especial interest in our people, creativity, empowerment, responsibility and freedom. We believe this culture will create a special environment that will bring benefits for our company and our customers. Our Company Culture is: People People are our most valuable asset. We acknowledge our employees and their strengths. Equality of opportunity and non-discrimination; internal communications and the free flow of ideas. Innovative and Creativity Employees are encouraged to try out new ideas and embrace innovative practices which we think will drive the company forward. We follow a strong innovation mindset. Fully empowered employees We share a passion for life, and we believe the best is yet to come. We seek to encourage a climate of confidence to ensure that employees can air questions and problems arising during the course of their work and aim for quick resolution to the satisfaction of all concerned. Freedom through Responsibility Describes how we make decisions: as close to the consumer as possible. It also affirms our belief that decision-makers should accept responsibility for their own decisions. Customer-focused We encourage our employee to be customer driven and we believe that customer knowledge is strategic. Open Minded Reflects our openness to change, opportunities and new ideas, and changing social expectations. We seek to listen without prejudice, actively and genuinely considering other viewpoints. Personal development and learning; We will develop and deliver high quality learning and development initiatives appropriate to the needs of the individual. employees are encouraged to take responsibility for their own development. Reasonable working hours and family friendly policies; 14
Create their own kind of balance in life also we create a workplace as flexible as possible to enable our employees to have freedom, balance and autonomy. Enterprising Spirit Ability to grow our business and its value within challenging environments – in the confidence to seek out opportunities for success, to strive for innovation and to accept considered risk-taking as part of doing business. Fair, clear and competitive remuneration and benefits We use remuneration and reward as an active tool to build and maintain a high performance, highly motivated culture. Performance and Quality we strive for excellence in everything we do. We seek the best tools and training possible to enhance our performance. It is accomplished through continual process improvement. Workspace We will create a fun an innovative workspace where our employees can have fun. Broadband connection to their home (enabling staff to work from home when required). Recreation Facilities - Workout room with weights and rowing machine, locker rooms, washers and dryers, assorted video games, Foosball, baby grand piano, pool table, ping pong. Café - Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff. Stations, Outdoor seating for sunshine daydreaming. Snack Rooms - Bins packed with various cereals, gummi bears, M&Ms, toffee, licorice, cashew nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks. Dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soda and make-your-own cappuccino.
References “Company Culture, What It Is And How To Change It.” http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/companyculture.htm British American Tobacco Company Culture. http://www.bat.com/ Walt Disney Culture. http://corporate.disney.go.com/careers/culture.html
15
Distribution Techniques
Our company “Giant Japanese Monster, Bad!” will focus all of its business on the Internet. It is the purpose to have one website with online sale. From here the customer have the possibility to select between the different designed toys. When the customer buys a product from the website, the customer will be provided with customized shipping options. The team has experienced that in relation to shipping some buyers demand speed and others low cost.
Because the toy company is not designing an unlimited number of the toys, the delivery of products will work on first in first out priority. It is the intention of the company to create a personal contact with the buyers. Hereby it is possible to get a better insight in our customers fascinating world and create a better customer satisfaction.
The company will also use the tactic of selling the toys on the different auction on the web. Again, the distribution functions as the same on the original website. As mentioned before the company uses the blind box principal, which means that user cannot see what is actually inside the box.
To distribute the companies massage the main website will function as the main platform to distribute the massages to the customers. In addition, the different messages boards on the web will work as an effective way to send out different messages.
16
Budget-Boosting Public Relations Tactics
Due to the constraint of the budget at the beginning of our business, our public relations tactics would focus on three areas: website, toy convention, and magazines. Website: GJMB’s website is our primary tool for connecting our target customers. The website not only provides the latest news release, which includes the introduction of new products, company and industry news, and personnel changes (The One-Day Marketing Plan Chapter18), but also shows the sales items, new designers recruited in our company and the discussion board. The discussion board in our website allows us to communicate with the customers and generate the ideas for the future product designs. The story of each item and each generation is shown on the website. On the other hand, we would also like to develop a profound relationship with our customers by sending weekly newsletters and sales coupons through free registration membership program. Some fun games associated with those toys are offered for registered members.
Toy Conventions: Since the Internet is the major communication channel between the company and our target customers, toy convention may be the only channel we can directly promote the company and communicate with our target. At the toy convention, our main goal is to create the buzz and to reach the potential customers who may be interested to start collecting our products. We would send a crew of our designers to the convention and provide short lessons to introduce the process we create our design. Also, we offer few premium items for onsite auction to attract the attention of the premium toy collectors.
Magazines: GJMB would allocate some budget for advertisements in the toy magazines, such as Super 7. The ads would aim at promoting our website and our products. We would also want to develop a partnership with the toy magazine like Super 7. Through the partnership with toy magazines, we can gain more exposure and also sell the products.
17
Publicity Stunt
The purpose of the publicity stunt is to create communicate the message in an inexpensive way (Entrepreneurial Marketing, P.217). We create some fliers and stickers with variable beautiful designs for college students and visitors of our websites. Some cute bookmarks and postcards with our fun toy designs are offered to the toy club in college and irregularly give to young generations in Santa Monica. By receiving and using these beautiful tools, we hope to reach more potential customers and create a dialogue between them and our company.
References “The One-Day Marketing Plan.” Roman G. Hiebing Jr. and Scott W. Cooper. Chapter 6, p.154, and Chapter 18, p. 288. “Entrepreneurial Marketing.” Bruce Buskirk and Molly Lavik. p. 217.
18
Marketing Budget
Because of the heavy use of free or low-cost Internet-based forms of product and brand marketing, GJMB’s marketing budget is very low. Reliance on creating brand awareness and product buzz through our company website, continuous collector message board postings, regular emails to those expressing interest in our product lines and attendance at major trade shows featuring similarly positioned toys not only will assist the company in cutting costs during the early stages, but will effectively promote our products to our target markets.
Of course, if excess company funds were made available, the marketing budget could be increased to take advantage of more traditional marketing techniques such as advertisements in toy collector magazines and attendance at significantly more trade shows. Additionally, GJMB could include make more promotional items such as stickers, t-shirts, postcards, flyers and posters available to collectors who attend trade shows or who sign up on the company website.
19
Branding Yourself
In the boutique toy industry, it will be very important for the principals of GJMB to be branded as collectors themselves. Currently, many collectors purchase toys from small companies because they are being offered by small companies run by collectors. These collectors would not likely purchase similar toys if they were to be offered by the big multi-national corporate toy manufacturers.
One way to brand the principals as fellow collectors is through attendance at major toy shows. At these shows, the principals will have the opportunity to interact personally with the collectors and share stories and experiences in toy collecting.
Additionally, to connect to collectors who do not frequent the major toy shows, the principals of GJMB will have their biographies posted on the company website. These biographies will be main features of the site and will be modeled after the Super 7 Store’s biographies, which feature interesting photos and unique and creative personal descriptions.8 The Super 7 Store is a toy store in San Francisco, managed by a long-time toy collector, which sells boutique toys in addition to other types of rare and imported toys. An expanded version of these biographies, including personal home videos of the principals, will also be included on the company’s HyperCD in order to connect the principals of GJMB to the collectors.
8
Super 7 Store Online. http://super7store.com/Information.htm (For biographies of the scroll to bottom of the webpage. For best examples refer to biographies of Brian Flynn and Karen Stanley).
20